


i 



MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS 



\ 



MEMORIES OF 
FIFTY YEARS 



BY 

LESTER WALLACK 

il 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

LAURENCE HUTTON 



WITH PORTRAITS AND FAC-SIMILES 



NEW-YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1889 



■ W3/\3 



Copyright, 1 888 - 1 88 p, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 

17 Ou t3 



TREFACE. 

The best talk, proverbially, is that which escapes 
ap the open chimney, and cannot be repeated. The 
following papers are simply the result of an effort 
to catch and preserve the familiar talk of a veteran 
of the stage on its way to the fireplace of a certain 
front room in Thirty-fourth Street, New York : They 
do not pretend to be complete or consecutive ; or even 
to be what is termed literature: merely the Social and 
Professional Memories of Half a Century, affec- 
tionately inscribed to the audiences the Speaker had 
addressed in other days, and in other ways. 

Too feeble in health during the last winter of 
his life to perform the manual labor of writing his 
reminiscences or even to attempt studied dictation, 
Mr. Wallack was able only to recount in familiar 
conversation with a responsive listener, and from 
time to time, these stories and incidents of his long 



viii Preface. 



career, which zee re taken dozen by a stenographer 
literally and without omission. His sudden death 
left the work in its present fragmentary and un- 
finished state, and although he revised and corrected 
the greater part of it, certain portions he never saw 
after they were transcribed. The matter has been 
arranged as far as possible in chronological order, 
but in other respefts it stands here as it fell from 
his lips. 

The Biographical Sketch, the Illustrations, the 
Appendix, and the Index have been added by the 
Editor. The portraits of Mr. IVallack and of his 
friends and contemporaries are reproduced, with 
one or two exceptions, from original drawings and 
life photographs, nearly all of which have never 
before been engraved. The List of Characters 
Played by Mr. Lester IVallack — some three hun- 
dred in number — is believed to be complete. It has 
been compiled from the records of IVallack' s Theatre 
and from many files of old playbills in different col- 
lections, and in its preparation the Editor has been 
assisted by Mr. Henry Edwards, Mr. John Gilbert , 
Mr. Joseph N. Ireland, Mr. Charles C. Moreau, Mr. 
Willi am Winter, Mr. Charles E Wat lack, and Mrs. 



Preface. ix 



Lester Wallach, to whom be wishes here to express 
bis thanks. 

How much of the charm of these papers has been 
lost in the transcription only those familiar with 
Mr. W attack's powers as a story-teller can ever 
know. The warmth and the brightness of the nar- 
ration have been preserved, but the accents, the mod- 
ulations, the gesture and the expression — a very 
great part, if not the best part, of his talk — the 
open chimney has received and dispersed forever. 

LAURENCE HUTTON. 
" The Players:' 

January, 1889. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The portraits of actors and actresses are from rare life photographs 
in the collection of the Editor. 



PAGE 

Lester Wallack Frontispiece. 

James William Wallack 5 

John Johnstone (from a miniature) 9 

Wallack's Theatre, Broadway at Broome 

Street 15 

Wallack's Theatre, Broadway at Thir- 
teenth Street 19 

Wallack's Theatre, Broadway at Thirtieth 

Street 25 

Lester Wallack at Stamford — 1888 29 

F Ac-simile of Lester Wallack's Contract with 

Benjamin Webster. . 33 

Henry Wallack 34 

National Theatre, Leonard and Church 

Streets 37 

Lester Wallack at the age of thirty-two ... 45 



xii List of Illustrations. 



I'AGE 



G. V. Brooke 58 

Charles J. Mathews 62 

A. H. Davenport 64 

Mrs. Charles J. Mathews (Miss Lizzie Weston). 65 

Lester Wallack as Leon Delmar 67 

Harry Beckett 73 

Charlotte Cushman 76 

Dion Boucicault 79 

Testimonials to J. W. Wallack 85 

Charles Kean 92 

Fac-simile of a letter from Edmund Kean to 

J. W. Wallack 93 

Mrs. Charles Kean . 96 

Douglas Jerrold 97 

Fac-simile of a note from Harriet Mellon 

Coutts to Edmund Kean 99 

Burton's Theatre. Chambers Street 10 1 

William E. Burton 103 

F. S. Chanfrau 105 

Signor De Begnis 109 

Thomas Hamblin 116 

C. W. Clarke 117 

James W. Wallack, Jr 118 

Bulwer-Lytton 123 

W. C. Macready 125 

George H. Barrett 133 

Broadway Theatre, near Anthony Street 135 

Thomas Hadaway 138 



List of Illustrations. xiii 



PAGE 



George Vandenhoff 139 

John Dyott 141 

Thomas Placide 142 

William Rufus Blake 143 

George Jordan 145 

Mrs. Vernon 146 

Charles Walcot (the elder) 148 

Mary Gannon 150 

Laura Keene 151 

Mrs. F. B. Conway 152 

Mrs. John Hoey 153 

Madeline Henriques 155 

Charles Fisher 155 

Agnes Robertson Boucicault 156 

William J. Reynolds 156 

Joseph Jefferson 157 

Tom Taylor 159 

C. W. Couldock 160 

Sara Stevens 161 

Charles Peters 161 

E. A. Sothern 163 

Tom Robertson 1 70 

H. J. Montague 174 

William Farren 1 79 

John Gilbert 181 

Samuel Lover 187 

Tyrone Power 189 

F. B. Conway , . . . . 193 



xiv List of Illustrations. 



Sketch of J. W. Wallack in character, by 

Millais 211 

f ac-simile of the bill of the openino 

NIGHT OF THE BROADWAY THEATRE. AND 

of Lester Wallack's first appearance 

in America At End of I r olume. 



LESTER WALLACK. 



THAT dramatic talent is inherent is shown in 
the history of the three great theatrical families 
of this country — the Booths, the Jeffersons and 
the Wallacks. Lester Wallack, the subject of this 
present sketch, is the last of a long line of well- 
graced actors ; and as a mere study of heredity 
the story of his descent cannot fail to interest even 
those who have no interest in the affairs of the 
stage. 

William Wallack, the first of the name of 
whom there is any record, was an actor and a 
vocalist at Astley's Amphitheatre in London, 
towards the end of the last century. He married 
Elizabeth Field, at one time a leading member 
of Garrick's company, and the mother, by a 



2 Lester Wallack. 

former husband, Dr. Granger, of Mrs. Jones, 
who played at the Park Theatre, New York, in 
the season of 1805-6, who was called, because 
of her beauty, "the Jordan of America," and 
whose two daughters, Mrs. Edmund Simpson 
and Mrs. Bancker, were themselves favorite 
actresses in New York. 

William Wallack and Elizabeth Field Granger, 
his wife, had four children who left their marks 
upon the British and the American stage — Hen- 
ry, James William, Mary and Elizabeth. Mary 
Wallack — Mrs. Stanley — Mrs. Hill — made her 
American debut at the Chatham Theatre, New 
York, in June, 1827. She remained there for a 
season or two, retired into private life, and died 
in New Orleans in 1834. Elizabeth Wallack — 
Mrs. Pincott — never came to this country. She 
was the mother of Mrs. Alfred Wigan. 

Henry Wallack, the oldest of the family, was 
born in London in 1790. He is believed by Mr. 
Joseph N. Ireland to have appeared in this 
country as early as 18 18, although the bills of 
the Anthony Street Theatre, New York, record 
" his first appearance in America" at that house 



Lester Wallack. 



on the ninth of May, 182 1, and in the part ot 
Young Norval. He was very prominently before 
the public for almost fifty years ; and as an actor 
and a man he was deservedly popular. He played 
an unusually wide range of parts, from Hamlet to 
Dandy Dinmont, and in his later years he excelled 
in such characters as Sir Peter Teazle and Sir 
Anthony Absolute. He died in New York in 1870. 
Henry Wallack was the father of James William 
Wallack, Jr., and of two daughters, Julia and 
Fanny, " Young Jim Wallack," as he was affec- 
tionately called, is still pleasantly remembered 
here for his admirable performance of Fagin in 
" Oliver Twist," of Mercutio i of Mathias in " The 
Bells," of Leon de Bourbon in " The Man in the 
Iron Mask," of Henry Dunbar and of other parts. 
He was born in London in 18 18, came first 
to this country in 1838, and died here in 
1873. Fanny and Julia Wallack made their 
debuts together in " The Hunchback " as Helen 
and Julia — to the Master Walter of their father 
— at the New Chatham Theatre, afterwards 
Purdy's National Theatre, in the Bowery, New 
York, on the twenty-third of December, 1839. 



Lester Wallack. 



Fanny Wallack — Mrs. Charles Moorehouse — 
became a decided favorite with the public, and 
died in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1856. Julia 
Wallack married William Hoskin, better known 
in England than in America, and subsequently 
went upon the lyric stage in London as " Miss 
Julia Harland." She was at the Park Theatre, 
New York, in 1842. 

James William Wallack, the second son of 
William Wallack and the father of Lester Wal- 
lack, was, to paraphrase the remark of a biog- 
rapher of the famous Brown family of Scotland, 
in regard to the author of " Rab and His 
Friends," the Apex of all the Wallacks ! So 
long as he lived he was Mister Wallack, the 
Wallack, WALLACK himself ; and since his 
death, and the accession of his son and successor, 
he is always styled " the Elder Wallack " by 
those who have known both father and son. He 
was born in London in 1795 ; he appeared in 
the spectacle of " Blue Beard," at the house after- 
wards known as the Surrey Theatre, when he was 
but four years of age ; and before he was fifteen 
he had filled an engagement of two years at 




JAMES WILLIAM WALLACK. 



Lester Wallack. 



Drury Lane. His first success, as a man, was 
made at this latter house in 1812, when he 
played Laertes to the Hamlet of Elliston ; and 
he soon became an acknowledged favorite in the 
British metropolis in such romantic parts as 
Rob Roy, Rolla and Roderick Dim ; while as 
Petrnchio, Merciitio, Benedick and the like he 
was regarded as the only possible successor of 
Charles Kemble. He made his first appearance 
in the United States at the Park Theatre, New 
York, September seventh, 1 8 1 8 ; and he was again 
in this country in 1822, in 1832, and from 1834 
to 1836. In 1837 he- became manager of the 
National Theatre, on the corner of Leonard and 
Church Streets, New York, which was thus the 
original " Wallack's," although it never bore that 
name. Mr. Wallack was at the Park Theatre, 
under Mr. Simpson's management, in the season 
of 1843-4; an d in 1852 he assumed control of 
Brougham's Lyceum, which he called "Wal- 
lack's." In 1 86 1 he built the second Wallack's 
Theatre on Broadway at Thirteenth Street, and 
at the close of the season of 1 862 he bowed his 
acknowledgment of calls for the manager, and 



Lester Wallack. 



was never seen in any public capacity again. He 
died in New York on Christmas Day, 1864. 

James William Wallack was educated in the 
best dramatic school, that of experience, and 
with the most accomplished actors as his tutors 
and models. He had seen play, if he had not 
played with them, such masters of his art as 
Kean, Kemble, Bannister, Elliston, Mathews (the 
Elder), Cooke, Fawcett, Incledon, Macready, 
Booth, Liston, Young, Mrs. Jordan, Miss Mellon 
and Mrs. Siddons. He inherited beauty and 
grace of person, quick perception, a finely modu- 
lated and unusually sweet voice, and a decided 
genius for his profession. As Shylock, Don 
Ccesar, Martin Heyzvood and The Scholar he 
had no peer. 

In 1 8 17 Mr. Wallack married the daughter of 
John Johnstone, a very celebrated Irish comedian 
and vocalist, familiarly known as " Irish " John- 
stone, and one of the most prominent social and 
dramatic figures in London in the days of the 
regency. Mrs. Wallack came to America with 
her husband in 181 8, and frequently thereafter; 
but she died in London in 185 1. As the grand- 



X 




JOHN JOHNSTONE. 
[from a miniature.] 



Lester Wallack. 1 1 



son of his grandparents, paternal and maternal, 
as the son of his father, the nephew of his uncles 
and his aunts, and the cousin of his cousins, 
Lester Wallack certainly could claim blood as 
blue as that which flows in the veins of all the 
dramatic Howards. 

John Johnstone Wallack, known to the public 
as Lester Wallack, the eldest son of the Elder 
Wallack, was born in the city of New York 
on the night of the thirty-first of December, 

1 8 19, or on the morning of the first of January, 

1820, so near the stroke of midnight that he 
was never sure whether he came in with the New 
Year or was left by the Old ; and it was not until 
his marriage in 1848 that he definitely adopted 
the latter date, because the first of January 
chanced to be the birthday of his wife. Con- 
cerning his early professional life, which began in 
Great Britain, he has spoken freely and fully in 
the pages to which these are but a brief introduc- 
tion. His first appearance in the United States was 
made at the Broadway Theatre, New York, on 
the night of the twenty-seventh of September 
1847, m the farce of " Used Up," when he re 



/ 



12 Lester Wallack. 



tained the name of John Wallack Lester, which 
he had previously assumed on the other side 
of the Atlantic. The rare bill of this entertain- 
ment, which was also the opening night of the 
theatre, reproduced in fac-simile at the end of 
this volume, is from the collection of Douglas 
Taylor, Esqr., of New York. 

Mr. Lester's second part was that of the Vis- 
count de Ligny in " The Captain of the Watch," 
on the fourth of October ; and during this season 
his name appears as Captain Absolute, Major 
Murray in " The Jacobite," Sir Frederick Blount 
in " Money," Osric, — to the Hamlet of Mr. Mur- 
doch, — Frederick in " Ernestine," Littleto?i Coke, 
Dazzle, Mercutio, Count de Jolimaitre in Mrs. 
Mowatt's " Fashion," and many more. The 
season ended on the fourth of July, 1848, and on 
the seventeenth of that month he appeared at the 
Chatham Theatre as Don C&sar de Bazau, and 
later as Dick DasJiall and Robert Macaire. On 
the twenty-eighth of August of the same year 
Edwin Forrest played OtJiello at the Broadway 
Theatre, when Mr. Lester was his Cassio ; and 
the drama of " Monte-Cristo " with Mr. Lester 



Lester Wallack. 13 



as Edmund Dantes, was produced on the even- 
ing of December twenty- fifth as a Christmas 
spectacle. It ran for fifty consecutive nights. 

Mr. Lester made his first appearance at the 
Bowery Theatre, and as Don Ccesar de Baza?i ) 
on the seventeenth of September, 1849. His own 
dramatization of Dumas's " Three Guardsmen " 
was produced on that stage on the twelfth of 
November, with Mr. Lester as d'Artagnan, James 
William Wallack, Jr., as Athos, John Gilbert as 
Porthos, and James Dunn as Aramis. "The 
Four Musketeers, or Ten Years After," also by 
Mr. Lester, was presented on the twenty-fourth 
of December. On the second of September, 1850, 
Mr. Lester joined the company of Burton's 
Chambers Street Theatre, and made his first ap- 
pearance on that stage as Charles Surface. He 
remained under Mr. Burton's management until 
June, 1852, playing, among many others, such 
familiar parts as Harry Domton, Steerfortli, 
Citizen Sangfroid and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Wallack's Lyceum, formerly Brougham's Ly- 
ceum, and later Wallack's Theatre, on the west 
side of Broadway, and a few feet south of Broome 



14 Lester Wallack. 



Street, New York, was formally opened on the 
eighth of September, 1852, with "The Way to 
Get Married " and " The Boarding School," Mr. 
Lester playing Tangent in the former, and Lieut. 
Varley in the second piece. It was finally closed 
as Wallack's Theatre on the twenty-ninth of 
April, 1 86 1, when Mr. Lester played Randall 
McGregor in "Jessie Brown," and Mr. Bromley 
in " Simpson & Co.," and when Mr. Wallack de- 
livered a few touching words of farewell to the 
house, and of invitation to his friends and patrons 
to meet him the next season in his new home, 
uptown. Those nine years of Mr. Wallack's 
lesseeship of the old theatre were very eventful 
years in the history of the drama in New York. 
He had surrounded himself with the best stock 
company in America, if not in the English-speak- 
ing world, and his influence upon the stage and 
its literature is still felt. At this house Mr. Lester 
played many of his old parts, and created many 
new ones : Don Pedro m " Much Ado," Orlando, 
Bassanio, Massaroni in "The Brigand," Alfred 
lively 11, Charles Torreus, Reuben Gleuroy and 
Rover among the standard plays ; while he added 



Lester Wallack. 17 



to his list of characters Count Beuzeval in 
"Pauline "(March seventh, 1852); The Debilitated 
Cousin in " Bleak House " (October thirteenth, 
1853); Lord Fipley in "Love and Money" 
(November seventh, 1853); Rupert Wolfe in 
"The Game of Life" (December twelfth, 1853) ; 
Harry Jasper -in "The Bachelor of Arts" (January 
twelfth, 1854); De Rameau in his own comedy, 
" Two to One, or the King's Visit " (December 
sixth, 1854); Paul Weldon in "The Game of 
Love" (September twelfth, 1855); Peveril in a 
comedy from his own pen entitled " First Im- 
pressions" (September seventeenth, 1856); Ran- 
dall McGregor in " Jessie Brown " (February 
twenty-second, 1858); Arthur Morris in "Ameri- 
cans in Paris" (May eighteenth, 1858); Waverley 
in " Marriage a Lottery " (October eighteenth, 
1858) ; Leon Delmar in his own drama of "The 
Veteran" (January seventeenth, 1859); Frank 
Hawthorne in " Men of the Day " (May sixteenth, 
1859) ; Felix Featherlym " Everybody's Friend" 
(December seventh, 1859); Manuel in his own 
adaptation of " The Romance of a Poor Young 
Man" (January twenty-fourth, i860); Tom 



1 8 Lester Wallack. 



Dexter in "The Overland Route" (May four- 
teenth, i860); and Wyndham Otis in his own 
"Central Park" (February fourteenth, 1861). 

At this house Miss Laura Keene made her 
American debut September twentieth, 1852, and 
Mrs. Hoey reappeared upon the stage January 
thirtieth, 1854. Mr. Sothern — as "Mr. Douglas 
Stuart " — joined the regular company September 
ninth, 1854; Henry Placide and George Holland, 
September twelfth, 1855 ; Miss Mary Gannon, 
October fifteenth, 1855; Mrs. John Wood, 
December twenty-fifth, 1856; Miss Effie Ger- 
mon, September twentieth, 1858; and Miss 
Madeleine Henriquez made " her first appear- 
ance on any stage" December third, i860. The 
name of Mr. Theodore Moss, so intimately con- 
nected with that of Mr. Lester Wallack for so 
many years, appears in the bills as a member of 
the department of the treasury, from the opening 
night. Colonel Delmar in " The Veteran " was 
the last original part played by the Elder Wal- 
lack. His last appearance, as an actor, was as 
Benedickm "Much Ado About Nothing," at this 
first Wallack's Theatre, May fourteenth, 1859. 



Lester Wallack. 21 



The story of the second Wallack's Theatre, on 
the north-east corner of Broadway and Thir- 
teenth Street, must be as briefly told. It was 
built for Mr. Wallack, and was opened to the 
public on September twenty-fifth, 1861, with a 
new comedy by Tom Taylor called " The New 
President." Mr. Lester assumed the part of De 
La Rampe, and his name appeared upon the bills 
as Mr. Lester Wallack. He was the active 
manager of the establishment from the beginning, 
and became sole proprietor upon his father's 
death in 1864. He collected about him a very 
strong company of comedians, and for years he 
sustained the great reputation of the house and 
of the name it bore. He himself appeared in 
many of the old comedies, and was the central 
figure in many plays entirely new to the Amer- 
ican stage, or to any stage. 

Among his original parts at this house may be 
mentioned Captain Walter Harris in "The King 
of the Mountains" (October fifteenth, 1861); 
Mr. Union in " Bosom Friends " (September 
eighteenth, 1862) ; Lord Henry de Vere in " My 
Noble Son-in-Law" (April seventh, 1863); 



Lester Wallack. 



Elliott Grey in his own popular drama of " Rose- 
dale " (September thirtieth, 1863) ; Frank Roch- 
ford or Lancia in "Pure Gold " (February ninth, 
1864); Captain Bland in "Captain Bland" 
(May thirtieth, 1864); Don Ravagos in "The 
Compact " (October thirteenth, 1864); Vacil m 
" How She Loves Him " (December twelfth, 
1864); Hugh Chalcote in "Ours" (December 
nineteenth, 1866); Jack Poyntz in "School" 
(March fifteenth, 1868); Colonel John White in 
" Home " (December eighth, 1869) ; Jack Ran- 
dall in "Birth" (March twenty-seventh, 1871); 
John Garth in " John Garth " (December fif- 
teenth, 1 871); Gibson Greene in "Married in 
Haste" (January twelfth, 1876); Chester Dela- 
field and Mark Delafield in " Twins " (April 
twelfth, 1876) ; Hugh Trevor in " All For Her " 
(January twenty-second, 1877); Adonis Ever- 
green in " My Awful Dad " (March tenth, 1877) ; 
Henry Beauclerc in " Diplomacy " (April first, 
1878); and Prosper Couramont in "A Scrap of 
Paper" (March tenth, 1879); making his final 
appearance upon that stage, in that part, at the 
close of the regular season, April eleventh, 1881, 



Lester Wallack. 23 



when after a management of twenty years the 
theatre passed out of his hands. 

During this long period some of the brightest 
and most healthy of modern plays were produced 
at this house, and many of the most deservedly 
popular actors and actresses in America trod its 
boards. Charles Fisher's name first appears on 
its bills September twenty-fifth, 1861 ; Mark 
Smith's, March seventeenth, 1862 ; John Gilbert's, 
October twenty-second, 1862 ; Edwin L. Daven- 
port's, September twenty-first, 1865 ; James W. 
Wallack, Jr.'s, November twenty- third, 1865 ; 
Frederick Robinson's, December twelfth, 1865; 
Joseph B. Polk's, September twenty-fifth, 1867; 
Miss Emily Mestayer's, September twenty-third, 
1 868 ; Charles James Mathews's, April eighteenth, 
1872; Harry Beckett's, September thirtieth, 
1873; H. J. Montague's, October fifth, 1874; 
and Henry Edwards's November seventh, 1879. 
" Oliver Twist," with its wonderful cast, includ- 
ing James W. Wallack, Jr., as Fagin, Edwin L. 
Davenport as Bill Sikes, Miss Eytinge as Nancy, 
and George Holland as Bumble, was produced on 
December twenty-seventh, 1867; while "The 



24 Lester Wallack. 



Shaughraun " began its career of success on 
November fourteenth, 1874. Mrs. Hoey retired 
finally from the stage in April, 1864; Miss Mary 
Gannon made her last appearance (as Alary 
Netley in " Ours ") January twenty-seventh, 
1868 ; Mrs. Vernon was last seen by the public, 
who loved her so sincerely, on April third, 1869 
(as Mrs. Sutcliffe in ''School "); and William R. 
Floyd died in November, 1880. 

Mr. Wallack broke ground for the third and 
last Wallack's Theatre, on the north-east corner 
of Broadway and Thirtieth Street, on the twenty- 
first of May, 1881, and opened it with "The 
School for Scandal " January fourth, 1882. His 
name was not in the bills, but he made a short 
address. He first appeared as an actor upon 
that stage on the third of January, 1883, when he 
revived the comedy of "Ours." He created the 
part of Colonel Crichton in " Impulse " February 
sixteenth, 1885, and the part of Walter Trevill- 
ian in " Valerie " February sixteenth, 1886; and 
he made his last appearance there in " The Cap- 
tain of the Watch " May first, 1886. Although 
actively engaged in its management until October, 



Lester Wallack. 27 



1887, he appeared there but rarely, playing 
" star engagements " in other cities of the Union, 
and in other theatres in New York, notably in 
the Park Theatre, on Broadway near Twenty- 
second Street, where he was the original Colonel 
W. IV. Woodd in " The Colonel " January four- 
teenth, 1882 ; and while Wallack's Theatre was 
Wallack's Theatre so long as he lived, it was 
Wallack's in little more than in name, and many 
of its traditions had departed. 

Mr. Wallack's last appearance as an actor 
upon any stage was at the Grand Opera House, 
New York, where he played Young Marlow, 
with Mr. Gilbert and Madame Ponisi, his old 
and faithful friends, as Mr. and Mrs. Hardeastle, 
May twenty-ninth, 1886. He was last seen of 
the public at the Metropolitan Opera House, 
New York, May twenty-first, 1888, when he 
made a short speech between the acts of " Ham- 
let," played in his honor with the strongest cast 
the tragedy has ever seen in America. Mr. 
Booth was Hamlet, Mr. Barrett The Ghost, Mr. 
Mayo The King, Mr. Gilbert Polonius, Mr. 
Plimpton Laertes, Mr. Wheelock The First 



2$ Lester Wallack. 



Actor, Mr. Milnes Levick The Second Actor, Mr. 
Jefferson and Mr. Florence The Gravediggers, 
Mr. Edwards The Priest, Madame Modjeska 
Ophelia, Miss Kellogg Gertrude, and Miss Rose 
Coghlan The Player Queen. This was one of the 
most remarkable and most pleasant events in Mr. 
Wallack's professional life, and the last words he 
ever uttered in the public ear, containing a 
prophecy, never, alas ! to be fulfilled, are here 
repeated : " I bid you all good-night. But 
mind, this is not a farewell, for if it please God 
to once more give me control over this rebell- 
ious limb I may trouble you again. With these 
few sincere words I bid you a respectful good- 
night, and leave the stage to * Hamlet ' and to 
you." 

He died at his country home near Stamford, 
Connecticut, on the sixth of September, 1888, and 
was buried in the cemetery of Woodlawn on the 
ninth of the same month. With him died the 
name of Wallack, which in his own art and in 
his own person he did so much to adorn. With 
him, too, died Young Marlon', Jack Absolute, 
Young Wilding, Rover, Alfred Evelyn, Hugh 




LESTER WALLACK AT STAMFORD 



Lester Wallack. 3 



Chalcote and Elliott Grey. For forty years, as 
actor and manager, he was one of the most 
prominent figures upon the American stage ; 
and his place there is no one to fill. 




U** 



A*- 











?^4fc 







~A 



Jfifca**** 



MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS. 

CHAPTER I. 

My first experience on any stage was at 
an establishment at Mitcham, in Surrey, called 
Baron House Academy, a fine old mansion 
which had become a private school. Colman's 
"Heir at Law" was produced immediately be- 
fore the beginning of the summer holidays, upon 
an improvised stage in the school-room, with 
the English usher as prompter and general man- 
ager. As the son of " the celebrated Mr. Wal- 
lack," it was felt proper, naturally, that I should 
take part and, between the acts, I was billed for 
the speech from Home's tragedy of "Douglas" 
— " My name is Norval" — although I was only 
ten years of age. I was dressed in a red tunic 
trimmed with fur, white trousers and red shoes, 



M 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



and carried a round wooden shield and a wooden 

sword painted blue. As for the lines, I suppose 
I must have painted them red. Mow I spoke 
them 1 leaven only knows. I only remember that 
I never missed a syllable. 

My next appearance was at another school 
performance given at Brighton, when I was 







about fifteen years old. This was 
at a seminary kept by a Mr. 
Allfree, which was then rather 
celebrated, and the play was " Pi- 
zarro." At that time my uncle, 
Henry Wallack, was stage-man- 
ager at Covent Garden. Of course 
all the boys were racking their 
brains and ransacking the shops 
to find what they should wear. 
My mother applied to my uncle, who sent down a 
lot of splendid properties, a leopard-skin robe and 
all the necessary things for Rolla, which were 
of course very much too large for me, particu- 
larly the sandals. I remember nothing of the 
play except that it went off with a great deal of 
applause; but \ do remember that the end was 



HENRY WALLACK. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 35 

a most undignified one for me, because as I fell 
dead I fell just exactly where the curtain must 
come down on me ; and when it began to de- 
scend, one of the soldiers, and the boy who played 
Alonzo, stepped forward, and taking me, one by 
one leg and one by the other, dragged me up the 
stage; a bit of new " business" which was greatly 
appreciated if I might judge from the " roars" in 
front. 

On returning from my first visit to America, 
which had been a purely social one, and before 
it was quite determined whether I should finally 
go into the army or not, my father, who was 
about to set out upon a starring tour to Bath 
and other provincial towns, proposed that I 
should join him, partly as a companion and 
partly to support him in such parts as could 
safely be entrusted to one who could only be 
looked upon as an amateur; and the first ap- 
pearance I made on any stage after I arrived at 
manhood was as Angelo in a play called "Tor- 
tesa the Usurer," by N. P. Willis. I had seen 
it brought out before, when my father had the 
National Theatre in New York. The character 



Memories of Fifty Years. 

of Tortesa was written for him, and when he 
went over to England he took the playwith him 

and starred in it. The character I assumed was 
originally acted by Edmon S. Conner, then his 
"leading juvenile." 

During this tour I played that part, Macduff 
to his Macbeth^ and Richmond to his Richard 
HI. , and these, I think, constituted the main 
portion of my endeavors at that time. This was 
just after the burning of the National Theatre 
in 1839. I had done enough, inexperienced as 
I was (so my father told me afterwards), to show 
that, if ever the profession should become a ne- 
cessity to me, I had a certain amount of prom- 
ise ; that in fact I had "the gift." During this 
engagement I assumed the name of "Allan 
Field," which had belonged to a relative of the 
family. 

I hesitated long before I made up my mind to 
become an actor; but when I finally did so, I 
determined that I should know my profession 
from beginning to end, and should depend upon 
it for my sole support; and the consequence 
was that my poor mother often cried in those 



Memories of Fifty Years. 39 

early days because I would not let her send me 
a five-pound note now and then, to add to my 
weekly stipend of twenty shillings ! 

I was resolved that whatever success I might 
make I would owe to myself, and not to my 
father's name ; therefore, as Mr. Lester I played 
the Earl of Rochester in the town of Rochester, 
in a comedy called " Charles II.," by John How- 
ard Payne. I had a very good part — the sec- 
ond part of the piece. Charles Kemble was 
King Charles, Fawcett playing Edward and 
Jones the Earl of Rochester in the original cast, 
at Covent Garden. The season at Rochester 
was a short one, as my uncle Henry Wallack, 
who had taken the theatre as an experiment, 
had it for only a few weeks. This was my 
first professional engagement. My salary was 
one pound a week ; and I was paid about as 
punctually as were actors in small companies at 
that time. Three pounds a week was a good 
salary in a country theatre, and five pounds was 
enormous. When we got to the larger provin- 
cial cities salaries were a little higher ; but I very 
much doubt if any leading actor at Bath, Bristol, 



40 Memories of Fifty Years. 

Liverpool or Manchester ever received more 
than ten pounds a week in those days. 

My experience at another provincial theatre — 
the Theatre Royal, Southampton — was some- 
what curious. The house was taken by a Mr. 
W. J. A. Abingdon, a barrister in very good 
practice and a rich man, who was wildly enthu- 
siastic upon every subject connected with the 
drama. His particular craze was his fancy that 
he resembled Shakspere, and he indulged his 
pride in having himself painted as the Bard of 
Avon, after Roubillac's statue in Westminster 
Abbey, a portrait which was distributed broad- 
cast over Southampton and the neighboring 
town of Winchester. I soon became a favorite 
with him, and as I was pretty careful in my 
study and acting, although very inexperienced, 
a short time after my joining his company he 
made me stage-manager; and a pretty queer 
stage-manager I suppose I was ! This must 
have been about 1844, because a little later I 
became a great Liverpool favorite. But to re- 
turn : We performed alternate nights at Win- 
chester and Southampton, and the company 



Memories of Fifty Years. 41 

used to travel in a little omnibus, with a lantern 
in its corner. After playing in Southampton 
we had to go to Winchester, and vice versa. We 
acted in three plays a night in those days, and 
had to write out our own parts, too. We were 
not provided with books, and studied by the 
light of this lantern, arriving at our destination 
awfully tired in the middle of the night, or per- 
haps early in the morning. Sometimes we had 
but one rehearsal, and sometimes two, seldom 
more ; and to this early discipline I owe the re- 
tentive powers of memory which have been of 
such wonderful assistance to me ever since. 

In the course of a few months I found myself 
in the Irish capital, and I was a member of the 
company of the Theatre Royal there for a couple 
of seasons. During that time I became acquainted 
with a young cornet in the Fifth Dragoon Guards. 
He was six feet six in height, and a remarkably 
handsome, though boyish, looking fellow. He 
was always at the theatre, either before or behind 
the footlights, and having some talent as an ama- 
teur he was never happy unless he was acting. 
His father, Sir Alexander Newton Don, was a very 



4^ Memories of Fifty Years. 

wealth)' man, who died while his SOH was a child. 
The boy's guardians were the celebrated Mr. 
Majoribanks, the great banker, and, I think, the 
Duke of Cleveland. He was the wildest of the 
wild, and when he became of age and inherited 
his splendid property he immediately went upon 
the turf, where he lost every penny of it in four 
or five years. When I met him the second time, 
to my utter astonishment, it was here in New 
York, where he had come to play an engagement, 
having entered the profession. He appeared as 
Sir Charles Coldstream in " Used Up," a part in 
which I had made some quiet fame. Baronets 
were not so common in that time as they are now, 
and, as people were curious to see one, he drew 
very well. He then went to Australia, where he 
died, still a young man. He was one of the most 
eccentric and extraordinary characters I ever 
knew. He played under his own name and 
title, Sir William Don, Bart., and on his trip 
through the South, the farther away he got from 
what we may call first-class towns and civiliza- 
tion generally, the less they understood what 
Sir William Don, Bart, meant, and, to his great 



Memories of Fifty Years. 43 

amusement, he was generally addressed as " Mr. 
Bart. ! " 

Don had a travelling agent named Wilton, 
who was nearly driven to distraction by his em- 
ployer's wild behavior. If at the close of an en- 
gagement there chanced to be a small profit, say 
fifty or sixty dollars, Don would distribute it all 
among the carpenters and scene-shifters, leaving 
himself without a penny. Concerning his methods 
of doing business, Wilton used to tell the follow- 
ing story : " Once he had occasion to take a short 
drive, and he hailed a cab. What do you sup- 
pose he did ? It was a most extraordinary 
thing ; he asked the man if he had any change. 
The man said ' No ' ; and I had none. The fare 
was half a dollar, and Sir William tore a dollar 
bill in two and gave the driver half, destroying 
the bill but not satisfying the brute." I remem- 
ber Don saying to me one day, " My dear John, 
if you will take a walk with me I will give you 
the great surprise of your life. You will see me 
pay a bill ! " And so he did, astonishing the re- 
cipient of the money, Fox, the tailor, even more 
than he surprised me. Speaking once of his 



44 Memories of Fifty Years. 

financial condition he said, "I have not a penny 
in the world, but when my dear old mother dies 
I shall come in for seventy thousand pounds. 1 \\ 
rather want and be hard up than wish ill to her. 
But with seventy thousand pounds and the 
strictest economy, I ought to get on very com- 
fortably for a year at least." 

I was in Dublin during what were called the 
great Post-office riots. They were caused by a 
most peculiar state of affairs. Some time before 
the railroads were established in Ireland an Italian 
named Bianconi took the contract to carry the 
mails that were landed at Oueenstown, and held 
it for years. He was a young fellow, very 
much liked, and no doubt the men who drove his 
carts all over the country were given to the ex- 
change of compliments — and whisky — with the 
peasantry. Bianconi was so popular that they 
Erinized his name, and called him Brian Cooney, 
Finally, it was reported to the Government that 
Bianconi was charging a great deal too much, and 
among other systems of reform or economy it was 
determined to look into the matter. The result 
was that the authorities advertised fortifiers lor the 




LESTER WALLACK AT THE AGE OF 32. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 47 

delivery of the mails in the various parts of the 
island, on the ground that the vehicles and horses 
of the present contractor were not satisfactory, and 
that too much valuable time was lost on the way. 
I rather think the only railway in Ireland at that 
time was from Kingstown to Dublin, a very short 
distance, ten minutes or so. This was in 1844 or 
'45 . The new contract was awarded to somebody, 
I could not say w r ho, but the consequence was that, 
with true Irish readiness for a row upon any prov- 
ocation, the Irish people, resenting what they 
believed was an interference with their rights, set 
out to smash everything that was not driven by 
Brian Cooney or his men. 

Sackville Street, Dublin, one of the finest thor- 
oughfares in the world, was crowded with men 
and women by the thousands. There was stone- 
throwing, and all those little amusements that an 
Irish mob (or for that matter any mob) indulges in, 
and at last the military had to be called out, the 
police having no control over the people, at least 
not sufficient to prevent their doing mischief. 
Colonel Scarlett, afterwards the celebrated Sir 
James Scarlett, who led the charge of the Heavy 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



Brigade In the Crimea, dispatched the troop in 

which l)»>n was a subaltern, and, realizing the 
danger to which the men would be liable by stone- 
throwing, the order was given that they should 
wear their helmets ; but " Billy " Dun swore he 
would not wear a helmet for "any bloody mob," 
as he called it, and he appeared with nothing on 
his head but his little forage cap. I was present 
when it was calculated that there were at least 
ten thousand persons around the Post-office, yell- 
ing, hallooing and throwing stones. When this 
troop, the Fifth Dragoon Guards, a fine regiment, 
came marching down, there was never such a scat- 
tering. It is worth recording simply to show 
what a red-coat or a blue-coat is to a mob. The 
soldiers simply rode quietly through them, and 
back, and they melted away. It was like pouring 
hot water or tea on a lump of sugar. After it was 
over, Sir William Don was called up and had a 
"wigging," as they called it, because he did not 
wear his helmet. Hut then he was always getting 
"wiggings" from somebody for something. 

The Dublin gallery is proverbial, or was in my 
day, for the shrewdness and humor of its outspoken 



Memories of Fifty Years. 49 

criticism. I remember one particular occasion 
when a man named Morrison, who led the chorus, 
a gigantic fellow and very ugly, afforded no little 
amusement to the audience and his fellow-singers. 
We had at that period what are called " Ticket 
Nights." After the benefits of the regular per- 
formers the underlings of the theatre, the leader 
of the chorus, the ushers in front and the ticket 
takers, would have a benefit in common, when it 
was the custom to give them half the receipts ; the 
manager doing it because he knew perfectly well 
that the house would be jammed full to the ceil- 
ing, as the beneficiaries sold their tickets among 
their friends and in great quantities. The curi- 
ous part was the fact that the ushers and ticket 
takers, who, of course, never played anything 
themselves, made up for it by pestering the man- 
agement for some particular play which they pre- 
ferred. The people on the stage, chorus singers, 
etc., naturally wanted to do something, to get a 
chance they never had in any other part of the 
season. This man Morrison, who, by the way, 
was known as "Nigger Morrison," because of 
his dusky complexion, had a baritone voice and 



jo Memories of Fifty Years. 

insisted upon singing a ballad between the acts 

on this particular "Ticket Night" Now the 
occupants of the gallery were original in their 

methods and ingenious in the application of 
them. They would wait until there was a gap 
in the play, as there always is, and then say their 
say. The expected chance came when Morrison 
went on and began : " Oh, I was young and lovely 
once " — pausing a moment to draw his breath. 
" And a bloody long toime ago it must have been, 
Morrison, me boy!" was the response from the 
gods. There was no more song for Morrison ! 

To give another instance of the quickness of 
these fellows : A bass singer named Leffler — 
and a very charming singer he was, too — came 
to Dublin, I think with the Pyne troop, which 
opened in "La Sonnambula." Leffler was both- 
ered for a dress for Count Rudolpho. He was 
very fond of swaggering and making a show, 
and he went to the lessee in a great state of 
mind to know what he should wear. The lessee 
asked, "Where is your own dress?" "Oh!" 
said Leffler, " I don't know; they were going to 
send it over, and it has not arrived, and upon 



Memories of Fifty Years. 51 

my honor I have n't got anything to put on. I 
don't know what I shall do." "You have got 
some tights, I suppose, and some Hessian boots ; 
you have a plain coat, or if not I will find you 
one, and you can go on looking like a gentleman 
who is traveling." This was a very proper dress, 
but Leffler replied, "I always go on and make a 
show, and I must have something military ! " 
Now it chanced that the regiment stationed in 
Dublin had a few days before sold the old uni- 
forms of its band — white coats with yellow 
facings, and scarlet trousers with a white seam. 
Leffler thought this the very thing, and selected 
a suit which fitted him to perfection. When the 
overture was finished he swaggered out upon the 
stage thus gorgeously clad and with a riding- 
whip in his hand. Before he could open his 
mouth a man in the gallery, who recognized the 
costume, cried : " Good-avenin', Mr. Leffler. 
Give us a chune on the clarionet ! " 

Barry, the prompter, came on one night to 
make a speech, somebody having been taken ill. 
It was the fashion then to wear white duck trou- 
sers. Barry had been out in a shower of rain 



52 Memories of Fifty Years. 

and his nether garments were covered with mud. 
He had no time to change them, but had to go 

on and make apology in this condition. He 
began: "Ladies and gentlemen," and as he 
paused a moment a man in the gallery called 
out: "Dick, when did you give your ducks a 
swim ? " 

There used to be in those days what are 
called "Bespeak Nights," when some influential 
person publicly appeared as the especial patron 
of some particular performance. When the Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland " bespoke " a play it was 
usually for the benefit of the manager of the 
Theatre Royal. By some old law that exists, 
or did exist, the manager of this house ex officio 
is a member of the vice-regal court, and on 
"Bespeak Nights" Calcraft was always present 
in full court dress, standing with a wand behind 
the representative of royalty; and while the ser- 
geants of the regiments at the Castle filled the pit 
the privates and their families crowded the gallery. 
The consequence was that when they all stood up 
to sing "God Save the Queen," the sight was 
most magnificent. All the sergeants and the ser- 



Memories of Fifty Years. 53 

geant-majors in the pit, the officers in the boxes, 
the cavalry and infantry, dressed in scarlet and 
blue, made a beautiful and brilliant picture. This 
did not exclude the public at all, and lots of fel- 
lows got in, particularly in the gallery, and as 
much for the sake of the audience as of the play. 
On one particular night, which closed the 
season, I remember Calcraft, at the end of the 
piece, excused himself and went on the stage 
to make his farewell speech. As he entered 
there was an immense round of applause, and 
he said: "Ladies and Gentlemen: According 
to custom I appear before you, in the name of 
my company and myself, to take a respectful 
leave and to express our appreciation of all the 
favors you have been kind enough to shower 
upon us during a very difficult and trying sea- 
son. I cannot say that the season has been a 
very prosperous one, because many circum- 
stances have militated against it. Of course, I 
merely mention this because we do not want to 
seem ungrateful for the favors we have received, 
and I want to acknowledge the presence of the 
representative of Her Majesty, and to thank 



54 Memories of Fifty Years. 

him for the kind patronage he has always ex- 
tended to the drama and to those who humbly, 
and to the best of their ability, represent it." 
He then went on to say that the change in the 
fashionable dinner-hour had had a bad effect on 
the houses ; that it was a hard matter for those 
who dined at eight to get to the theatre in time 
to see a performance which began at half-past 
seven; but he was very thankful to think that so 
many people did come, etc. And while he was 
hesitating for his next point, a man rose in the 
gallery and said: "Mr. Calcraft!" — he was an 
old fellow with a dudeen stuck in his hat, which 
was shoved on the back of his head, and he 
waited with all the knowledge of an old actor 
until he got the house, and then continued — 
"Mr. Calcraft, I give ye me wurrd of honor, I 
always doine at two ! " 

A word here of digression in the matter of 
benefits may not be out of place. They were 
universal both in England and America among 
stock companies, and that I was the first to put 
a stop to them I am proud to say. They were 
degrading, and as I thought begging, appeals 



Memories of Fifty Years. 55 

from actors and actresses who already received 
what they conceived an adequate return for their 
services, and who had no reason to call upon the 
public for something extra. I spoke to other 
managers on the subject and said I would like to 
see an end put to it, although they considered it 
impossible. But I was determined ; and on one 
occasion, after Wallack's Theatre came entirely 
into my own hands, I assembled the company in 
my office and I questioned them severally as to 
what, in the years they had been with me, was 
the largest sum they had ever cleared by a benefit. 
"Well," said one, " I cleared for my share an hun- 
dred and fifty dollars." Another: "I cleared 
fifty dollars." Others made three or four hundred 
dollars, as the case might be. I said, " Well, 
I '11 tell you what I will do ; I will tack the sum, 
whatever it is, on to your weekly salaries, and so 
do away with the benefits altogether." The offer 
was accepted, other managers followed my ex- 
ample, and the obnoxious system died an easy 
and a natural death. 



CHAPTER II. 

One of the first important steps I ever took 
upon the ladder of fame was when I had the 
honor, and pleasure, of playing Benedick to Helen 
Faucit's Beatrice at Manchester. She was one 
of the gentlest and sweetest actresses I ever met. 
She gave me more encouragement than I had 
ever received before, and the patience with which 
she rehearsed, for I was young and inexperienced 
then, was remarkable. She did what must have 
been very irksome to her and went over our 
scenes again and again with me, until I got my 
part in some kind of shape ; and it was through 
her kindness that I made something of a hit with 
the audience. I shall always remember her with 
feelings of the greatest gratitude on that account. 
I played but that one Shaksperian part with her, 
because Beatrice was her only comedy character 

50 



Memories of Fifty Years. 57 

there except Rosalind, and as she appeared in 
tragedy all through the rest of the engagement 
Gustavus Brooke supported her. She is now 
Lady Martin. As Miss Faucit she was what I 
should call one of the most sympathetic actresses 
who ever walked the English stage. She com- 
bined a great deal of power with perfect pathos, 
and I can hardly recall another actress who did 
this in so great a degree. They say her Lady 
Macbeth was very impressive; I know her Portia 
was. She not only played the comic portions 
admirably, but " the trial scene " was equally well 
done ; gentle and quiet, but majestic and power- 
ful — wonderfully impressive. She came out first 
in London under her mother, Mrs. Faucit, who 
played what is called the " heavy lead." Helen 
supported Macready — she was the original Clara 
Douglas in Bulwer's " Money " — at the Hay- 
market, Covent Garden, and elsewhere, before 
she went starring on her own account. She was 
a very great favorite throughout Great Britain, 
particularly in Edinburgh. 

I first met Gustavus Brooke at this Manches- 
ter house. It was rather a small one and Brooke 



58 



Memories of Fiftv Years. 



and I dressed in the same room. Off the st 
he had a particularly strong brogue. He was a 

perfectly reckless man, who did not care how his 
money went or what straits he might be in. He 
was an Irishman — one of the generous, kind- 
hearted, whole-souled John- Brougham Irishmen. 
During that engagement at Manchester we 
acted together. I would often go 
into my dressing-room and find 
that certain very necessary articles 
of my wardrobe were missing; and 
one night in particular I remem- 
ber I was playing Modus in the 
"Hunchback," while he was act- 
ing Master Walter and Miss Fau- 
cit Julia. I went into the room 
and found Brooke ready to go on. I had a cos- 
tume I was particularly fond of — a chocolate- 
colored, plain, quiet sort of dress; and I missed 
the tights belonging to it. Brooke said : "What 
is the matter, me dear boy?" I said: "I can- 
not dress — I can't find my tights." "Why," 
said he, "I took the liberty to take your 
tights myself; they are on me. I could n't find 




G. V. BROOKE. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 59 

my own." Fortunately I did not go on till 
the second act, and by that time the whole thea- 
tre had been ransacked and I got somebody's 
nether garments, and he carried through the 
performance with " Lester's tights." It was 
characteristic of Brooke that he would have 
been quite as willing that I should have taken 
his and have gone on himself without any. He 
was one of those reckless, generous creatures 
who would give anything he had in the world 
to me, or to anybody else he liked. 

He first made his appearance at the Olympic, 
in London, a little bit of a theatre, and he met 
with the most unqualified success. He came 
out in Othello. It is a singular thing that Brooke 
made almost as great a hit as Edmund Kean did 
when he appeared as Shy lock. It was a tremen- 
dous triumph. He had been little heard of ex- 
cept as a favorite provincial actor. His success 
was instantaneous and complete ; but, unlike 
that of Kean, it was not followed up at all. 
The second part he played was Sir Giles Over- 
reach in " A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and 
although that was as consistently fine a piece 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



of acting as his Othello, perhaps more perfect, 
it did not seem to strike the people by any 
means so forcibly. From his first performance 
he gradually sank in public estimation, and that, 
I presume, was the reason he went to Australia, 
where he made an immense reputation and is 
still lovingly remembered. It was on his second 
voyage to Australia that he went to the bottom, 
poor fellow. I think the ship was called "The 
London." Harry Edwards has the most affec- 
tionate recollection of him. 

Brooke had a most wonderful voice — a voice 
of tremendous power and at the same time of 
great melody, and with a great deal of variety 
in it. On one occasion he was acting with For- 
rest, our American tragedian. He was then a 
stock actor in one of the English towns in which 
Forrest was starring, and when some one said to 
him, "Brooke, look out, here is Forrest coming; 
he has a powerful voice, a voice that will drown 
anything that was ever heard here," Brooke re- 
plied, "I '11 show him something if he tries it 
with me." Forrest played OtJicllo and Brooke 
lago, and in the great scene in the third act, 



Memories of Fifty Years. 61 



where Otliello lays hold of Iago, Forrest put 
forth the whole of his terrific and tremendous 
force, which he always did. The moment he 
finished, Brooke came out with his speech, "Oh, 
Grace ! Oh, Heaven defend me ! " etc., in a 
manner that almost made the roof shake; it 
absolutely seemed as if Forrest's voice had 
been nothing. It astonished Forrest, and as- 
tonished everybody else. I suppose Brooke 
had the most powerful lungs, except Salvini's, 
that were ever given to an actor. That is a very 
exhausting speech of Othello's in this scene, and 
by the time Forrest was done he was pretty well 
pumped out, and the other came in fresh. It was 
not a very wise act upon Brooke's part, and con- 
trary to his better judgment, but he had become 
so worked up by the repeated warnings against 
Forrest's tremendous voice that he did it on the 
spur of the moment. Forrest certainly was never 
more surprised in the course of his professional 
life, for it was seldom he met with a man whose 
utterance could compare with his own in volume 
and strength. 

My first intimate relation with Charles 



62 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



Mathews the younger was also during my Man- 
chester engagement, when I had become a sort 
of favorite at the Queen's Theatre — what might 
be called a semi-star, or asteroid. Mathews and 
his wife — formerly known as Madame Vestris — 
came there to play, and of course I was very 
glad of the opportunity of acting with them, 
which I did in two or three 
pieces, receiving the kindest and 
warmest encouragement from 
them both. This is one of my 
pleasantest recollections, one of 
those remembrances that make 
me appreciate the fact that a 
young man's progress may be 
very much injured or very much 
aided by the kindness or dis- 
couragement shown him by those who are higher 
in rank than himself. At all events, they did 
me a great deal of good. 

The next I saw of Charles Mathews was when 
he came to this country in 1857, after his wife's 
death, and played at what was then the Broad- 
way Theatre, on the corner of Anthony Street. 




CHARLES J. MATHEWS. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 6} 

I met him very frequently at dinner at Bouci- 
cault's house and at my own. My father was a 
great invalid, and Charles used to go and visit 
him and sit by his bedside continually; and so 
we got to see a great deal of each other; and it 
was perfectly remarkable then, as it was after- 
wards, how lightly he took all the cares and 
vicissitudes of life. He seemed to go through the 
world as a grasshopper does : when he found the 
ground a little rough he hopped and got over it. 
He was the most lightsome creature that can be 
imagined, and he never seemed to let care take 
hold of him. 

During this visit to America he played in 
various cities throughout the country, and I 
remember his showing me the results of an en- 
gagement in one large town, which he invested 
in a peculiar and characteristic way. His net 
profits were exactly ten cents, and this particular 
dime he put upon his watch-chain and wore for 
many years as a charm. This visit ended with 
his marriage to the wife of "Dolly" Davenport, 
formerly Miss Lizzie Weston. 

Davenport was then at our theatre, Broadway 



6 4 



Memories of Fifty Years. 




A. H. DAVENPORT. 



near Broome Street, and the famous fracas be- 
tween them occurred just outside of the stage 
door of the Metropolitan Theatre (afterwards the 
Winter Garden), where Mathews 
was playing an engagement. The 
usual result followed : there was a 
great deal of gossip, much con- 
troversy in the newspapers, with 
the inevitable "simmering down"; 
and Mathews and his wife almost 
immediately afterwards left America 
for England. Thence he went for a 
long tour to India, Australia and New Zealand. 

His last visit was made after my father's death, 
and when I had become the sole manager of the 
house on Broadway and Thirteenth Street. He 
brought over his second wife, who, from being a 
very handsome, dark-haired woman, had become a 
brilliant blonde ; as was the case with the majority 
of dark-haired women at that time. He opened 
at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, and she 
played in one piece with him. I remember that 
was the time I produced "The Liar." Mrs. 
Mathews came to see it the first night, and he 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



65 



told me afterwards that she had advised him not 
to play it. He replied, " My dear Lizzie, it is 
one of my big parts in London; why should n't I 
play it here ? " She said, "Don't think of it." 
He wanted to find out why he was not to play 
it, and asked two or three friends, who told him 
that I had embellished it with new scenery and 
many effects that he never thought of, and per- 
haps, if he were to play it, the audience would 
miss these things, and as he had plenty of other 
parts it would be just as well if he did not invite 
the comparison. 

At last he wrote and told me he 
wished to see me, so I made an ap- 
pointment, and he came one day to 
my office, and said: " My dear 
Wallack, what is the reason I must 
wander about from place to place? 
What is the reason I can't get any 
chance with you ? Here is the 
very theatre that suits me." I said : " My 
dear Charles, the reason simply is that the 
only auxiliary I have is myself; I have a very 
fine company, and when business is very dull 




MRS. CHARLES MATHEWS. 



66 Memories of Fifty Years. 

• 

I go on, and am a great help ; but a star 
theatre I can never make it." "Will you have 
me in your stock company?" he asked. "Are 
you joking?" I returned. And he replied, 
" Xo, not at all; I shall be delighted. Think what 
you can give me, and if you come anywhere 
near what will suit me, nothing will be more 
charming than to find myself under the manage- 
ment of one I knew almost as a boy." 

After duly considering the matter I wrote to 
him, saying he must make his own proposition, 
and that I would meet his terms if I could. His 
reply was : " My dear Wallack, No ! No ! No ! " 
Upon which I wrote : " My dear Mathews, I will 
give you one hundred pounds a week for the 
season." And he replied at once, " My dear 
Wallack, Yes ! Yes ! Yes !" And that settled 
the matter. 

He was a member of my company all through 
the season. I had then revived "The Veteran," 
to seventeen and eighteen hundred dollars a 
night, and had to defer his appearance. He 
came to me and said : " John, this is all wrong; 
T am taking your money and doing nothing." I 




LESTER WALLACK AS LEON DELMAR. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 69 

replied, " Charles, take it and do nothing, and 
thank Heaven you are so well off." He asked : 
" Do you mind if I can make that money by 
playing an engagement at Brooklyn ? " I an- 
swered : "No, certainly not; if you can relieve 
me of two or three of these five hundred dollars, 
I am willing." And this he did, in a measure, 
by what he made there. He was very ill at that 
time, too. It was then that he first told me what 
a charming club there was in Brooklyn, and was 
the cause of my ultimately joining the Brooklyn 
Club, of which I have been a member twelve or 
fifteen years. 

I first brought him out in " London Assur- 
ance," at my theatre. I played Charles Courtly 
and he played Dazzle. Gilbert was SirHarcourt, 
Miss Plessy Mordaunt was Lady Gay Spanker, 
and William Floyd was Dolly. Then he went 
through a round of his favorite characters. He 
played Puff m " The Critic " charmingly. Stod- 
dart was the Don Whiskerandos, and his death was 
so excessively droll that Mathews said it was the 
first time this character had succeeded in making 
him laugh on the stage, to the neglect of his own 



7" Memories of Fifty Years. 

"business." He appeared also during the en- 
gagement in " Aggravating Sam," one of his 
special favorites, and in his old part of Marplot 
in " The Busybody," which I had frequently 
played on the same boards. 

I was sitting in his dressing-room one night 
when he said : "John, I have been thinking where 
to place you." I said : " What do you mean ? " 
" Where to place you as an artist,'" he went on. 
I was naturally very anxious to hear what he had 
to say on that point, so I said : " Don't be bash- 
ful." I thought perhaps he was going to be a 
little critical. "Say anything; it must do me 
good more than harm." He said: "I should 
call you a mixture of your father and myself. 
Of your father in melodrama and high comedy, 
and of myself in what we used in my younger 
days to call \ touch and go ' playing." " Well," 
I said, " that 's a pretty good mixture, and, 
seriously, the highest compliment I have ever 
received." 

As a member of a stock company, in spite of 
his importance as a star, a more genial or charm- 
ing person cannot be imagined, nor a more loyal 



Memories of Fifty Years. 71 

subject. And here it may be remarked that, as 
a rule, I have always found that the higher the 
rank of the artist, the more amenable he is to dis- 
cipline. The troubles in this respect, at least 
those I have experienced, have always been 
caused by comparatively unimportant people. 

He said one day he had never seen an Ameri- 
can yacht. I said : " Well, will you come down 
and have a little cruise with me on the ' Colum- 
bia ? ' ' " For Heaven's sake, don't ask me to sail 
in her. I have sailed all over the world during 
the last two or three years, and I am thoroughly 
sick of the water." I said : "We won't quarrel 
about it, but come down and dine with me, and 
you might bring just a dressing-gown and a pair 
of socks, or something of the sort, because if it 
should rain very hard you had better sleep 
aboard, and not have that long journey back." 
The yacht was then lying off Tompkinsville, 
Staten Island. He came aboard and was de- 
lighted with her. I said : " Are you seasick ? " 
" Oh, this is delicious," he answered as he lay in 
the cockpit, smoking a cigar. I had given orders 
quietly to get the anchor up, and before he knew 



y.: Memories of Fifty Years. 

where he was we were under way, and he did not 
leave that boat for three or four days. He said 
he never had a more delightful time in his life. 

A more charming table companion and more 
agreeable person than Charles Mathews could not 
possibly be. I have somewhere the speech he 
made (which he sent me in print afterwards) at 
his benefit and last appearance on my stage. It 
was in a part called Sir Simon Simple, in " Not 
Such a Fool as he Looks." I had acted, in the 
first piece, the Captain of the Watch, an original 
part of his which I first saw him play at Covent 
Garden. That was the last time I ever saw 
Charles Mathews. I got a most affectionate let- 
ter from his wife after he had returned to Eng- 
land, in which she said she never could forget 
his description of how he was treated by me. 

After that Mrs. Wallack met him several times 
in London, and he was always most attentive 
and kind to her. On one occasion she went 
to see him in "My Awful Dad." There was 
another piece played after it, and Mathews, 
when he was dressed, came into the box and 
asked Mrs. Wallack how she liked it. She was 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



73 



much pleased with it; so he said: "There is but 
one man, after myself, that can play this part, 
and that is John. I will make it a present to 
him." He did so, and she brought out the 
manuscript. I saw that two long acts would 
never do, and I rewrote it, making it into three 
acts. Much of the business is mine, including 
the address to the jury. I 
did the latter in imitation 
of a barrister I had heard 
in London. That was how 
I came to have "My Awful 
Dad." Harry Beckett played 
the son admirably. 

I saw Barnay one night 
in a sort of petite comedy, 
in which he played a part 
that Charles Mathews would have played inim- 
itably. He was a young gentleman with light 
hair; a fashionable-looking youth, in a Prince 
Albert coat and in gray trousers, admirably 
dressed, and looking as if he might have stood 
on the steps of a Pall Mall or St. ' James' 
Street clubhouse. There was no more in it 




HARRY BECKETT. 



74 Memories of Fifty Years. 

than you could sec a man like Charles Mathews 
do, and do equally as well ; but it was pleasant 
and charming. He next appeared as King 
Lear, in which he was simply grand. From the 
almost flaxen-haired, gentleman-like young swell 
to the old white-bearded, majestic king was a 
decided change; and I can conceive nothing much 
finer than he was through the two or three acts 
that he presented in that latter impersonation. 
Finally he played the young Roman — the youth- 
ful Mark Antony — in the Forum scene; and 
the contrast between the three characters and 
the manner in which he presented them showed, 
I think, what a really great artist is. There you 
saw a great actor ; each thing was inimitable of 
its kind and absolutely as different and distinct 
from the other as it could possibly be. The 
youthful fire and vigor of Mark Antony had 
absolutely nothing in common with the faded 
grandeur and power of King Lear, and certainly 
neither of them suggested in any way the club- 
house swell of the present day. 

Barnay expressed his disappointment to me in 
this, that he came here expecting to play before 



Memories of Fifty Years. 75 

an American audience, but that at the Thalia 
Theatre, which is on the Bowery, and to which the 
uptown and west-side population of New York 
cannot be induced to go, he found he was playing 
to fine houses and to enthusiastic audiences, but 
that he might as well have been playing in Ber- 
lin. When Barnay saw me as Young Marlow in 
" She Stoops to Conquer," he came around to 
my room afterwards and was very enthusiastic. 
He pointed out to me the reasons why he liked 
it, and showed me clearly what it is to play be- 
fore an artist ; because, although his knowledge 
of English was limited and imperfect, he saw 
what not one person out of ten in an ordinary 
American or English audience in this period of 
ours would have seen. That is, he saw the mo- 
tive of everything I did, the effect of the study 
of what I did. He saw the intellectual side of it. 
I have given this part a great deal of study, as 
I do everything I play, right or wrong, and all 
this he fully appreciated and understood with 
the sympathy of a close and intelligent student. 
But to return to Manchester and my early ex- 
periences there. Charlotte and Susan Cushman, 



7 6 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



with both of whom I afterwards became very 
intimate, played "Romeo and Juliet" at the 
Queen's in 1845 ; and were the cause of my going 
to London, that Mecca of all young English 
actors. Susan was the Juliet, and Charlotte said 
to Mr. Sloane, who was then the lessee of that 
theatre, " Who is your Mercutio ? " Sloane re- 
plied : "There I think we shall 
be all right ; I have got young 
Wallack." She asked: "Whom 
do you mean by young Wal- 
lack ? I know Mr. James Wal- 
lack ; I have played with him, 
and have the greatest admira- 
tion for him. I know he has 
a son ; is he on the stage ? " 
"Yes," said Sloane. " I do not see his name 
here." " No, he calls himself Mr. Lester." 
" Very inexperienced, I am afraid," said Miss 
Cushman. "Yes, very inexperienced, but he is 
said to have a good deal of promise about him." 
At the end of the first rehearsal without books, 
Charlotte Cushman put her hand on my shoulder 
and said: "Young gentleman, there is a great 




CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 77 

future before you, if you take care and do not 
let your vanity run away with you." After that 
we became great friends, and when she w r ent to 
fulfil an engagement at the Haymarket she said 
to Mr. Webster : " Wallack is the coming young 
man of the day." As I had often seen my father 
in the part of Mercntio, I suppose, for a young- 
ster, it was a better performance than they ex- 
pected ; and that was the commencement of my 
approach to London. 

Mr. Webster thought that he would very much 
like to get a young man who would hit the pub- 
lic, because Charles Mathews had just left him 
to go to the Lyceum Theatre. Webster had the 
Adelphi and the Haymarket both, at that time. 
Miss Cushman's recommendation of me worked 
upon him, and he finally engaged me to play at 
the latter house. My first appearance in London 
was in a piece called '* The Little Devil," a two- 
act play which Mr. Mathews and his wife had 
been very successful in. Mr. Farren, Mr. Webs- 
ter and I consulted as to what would be best for 
my metropolitan debut; and I said I had made 
some fame in this part of Mathews's at Liverpool, 



78 Memories of Fifty Years. 



but I had played in a different version from that 
of Mathews and Vestris. I wanted to play my 
own version, as I had my own little business, and 
all that; but Mr. Webster declared that I should 
play in his, which was very poor ; and also that 
I should sing. I had never sung a note on the 
stage, and I told him it would in all probability 
kill my first appearance, by reason of the extra 
nervousness in singing a duet with Priscilla Hor- 
ton (afterwards Mrs. German Reed), and particu- 
larly a drinking song, a thing I never dreamed of. 
Not only did Mr. Webster insist upon my doing 
this, which required a restudy (there is nothing 
so difficult as studying the rearrangement of a 
play you have already learned), but he insisted 
upon my singing the songs, and sent me on the 
stage after 1 1 o'clock at night, and after a five- 
act comedy. I was a good deal put out at this. 
I thought it would ruin my chances, and to a 
certain extent it did, the audience being tired 
and yawning, many leaving the theatre before I 
came on. 

So well did somebody manage, — I won't say 
who, — that after a few nights of this I did not act 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



79 



at all, and when I appeared again it was once 
more under unfair treatment, as I believe. Mr. 
Hudson, who was the leading comedian then, 
was taken ill and could not play Dazzle in " Lon- 
don Assurance," which had 
then been revived. Mr. Bou- 
cicault himself attended the 
rehearsal, and they cast me 
for Dazzle, a part I had never 
attempted, and which had all 
the prestige of Mr, Charles 
Mathews's great name. I had 
not been allowed to play for 
some weeks, and I was put on 
the stage with Mr. Farren, Mr. Buckstone and 
all these people around me who knew every turn 
and twist of the business of the comedy ; and I 
naturally appeared under the greatest possible 
disadvantages. I think that is about all I did do. 




DION BOUCICAULT. 



CHAPTER III. 

How singularly prejudiced the old managers 
were against anything like an innovation. It was 
thought an extraordinary thing when Garrick 
first put on a pair of Elizabethan trunks for 
Richard III. He played MacbetJi in a square- 
cut scarlet coat, the costume of an English gen- 
eral, and a regulation wig with a pigtail of his 
own period, while Mrs. Pritchard, who played 
Lady MacbetJi, wore an enormous hoop. Gar- 
rick desired very much to wear a Scotch tartan 
and kilt, and a plaid, with bare legs, the tra- 
ditional Highland costume. But this was in the 
days of the Pretender, when no one was allowed 
to show a plaid in the streets of London. After 
Garrick had brought in a great deal of wise re- 
form in the way of dress there was a lull again, 
and no one dared to do anything new. Many 
80 



Memories of Fifty Years. 81 

generations later my father was cast for the part 
of Tresselj in Cibber's version of "Richard III." 
Trcsscl is the youthful messenger who conveys 
to King Henry VI. the news of the murder of 
his son after the battle of Tewkesbury. My 
father, a young, ambitious actor, came on with 
the feather hanging from his cap, all wet, his 
hair dishevelled, one boot torn nearly off, one 
spur broken, the other gone entirely, his gaunt- 
let stained with blood, and his sword snapped in 
twain ; at which old Wewitzer, who was the man- 
ager, and had been a manager before my father 
was born, was perfectly shocked. It was too late 
to do anything then, but the next morning We- 
witzer sent for him to come to his office, and 
addressed him thus: "Young man, how do you 
ever hope to get on in your profession by delib- 
erately breaking all precedent? What will be- 
come of the profession if mere boys are allowed 
to take these liberties? Why, sir, you should 
have entered in a suit of decent black, with silk 
stockings on and with a white handkerchief in 
your hand." "What! after defeat and flight 
from battle?" interrupted my father. "That 



82 Memories of Fifty Years. 

has nothing at all to do with it," was the re- 
ply; "the proprieties! Sir, the proprieties!" 

This simply goes to show how difficult it was 
to introduce anything new in the matter of acting 
or costume. Some of the papers spoke very 
highly of the innovation, and the audience was 
satisfied, if the management was not. Elliston 
was another early manager of my father's. He 
was a man whose pomposity and majesty in pri- 
vate life were absolutely amazing; but he was a 
great actor for all that and an intelligent man- 
ager. For example, George IV. was a most 
theatrical man in all he did, and when his coro- 
nation took place he dressed all his courtiers 
and everybody about him in peculiarly dramatic 
costumes — dresses of Queen Elizabeth's time. 
It was all slashed trunks and side cloaks, etc. 
Of course, the dukes, earls and barons were par- 
ticularly disgusted at the way they had to exhibit 
themselves, and as soon as the coronation cere- 
monies were over these things were thrown aside 
and sold, and Elliston bought an enormous num- 
ber of them. He was then the lessee of the 
Surrey Theatre, where he got up a great pageant 



Memories of Fifty Years. 83 

and presented "The Coronation of George IV." 
He had a platform made in the middle of the pit, 
and in one scene he strutted down among the 
audience in the royal robes; at which, with some 
good-natured chaff, there was a tremendous 
round of applause. For. the moment Elliston 
became so excited that he imagined he was really 
the King himself, and spreading out his arms 
he said, amid dead silence: "Bless you, my 
people ! " 

In his later years the habit of drinking became 
so confirmed that when he was advertised to ap- 
pear, the public, as in the case of the elder Kean, 
was never sure whether it was to see him or not. 
In one season, when my father was stage-man- 
ager of Drury Lane, Elliston was announced to 
play Falstaff in "Henry IV.," Macready being 
cast for Hotspur and my father for the Prince of 
Wales. The anxiety to see the performance 
was great, not only among habitual theatre-go- 
ers, but in the profession itself; and Macready, 
at his own request, had a chair on the stage to 
watch Elliston's rehearsals. He was perfectly 
delighted with what he saw; and he believed, 



84 Memories of Fifty Years. 

with others, that Elliston was the most perfect 
Falstaff that ever lived. Even in his feeble and 
intemperate old age he played it magnificently. 
On this particular occasion, in the scene of the 
combat between Hotspur -and the Prince of Wales, 
while Falstaff is encouraging the Prince, Doug- 
las enters, fights with Falstaff arid leaves him as 
if dead upon the field. When he is gone Falstaff, 
looking around to see that he is perfectly safe, 
and that no one is by, gets up, sees Percy slain 
and cries, "I am afraid of this gunpowder 
Percy, though he be dead," and stabs the body 
again in the thigh. The speech ends with the 
words: "Meantime, with this new wound in 
your thigh, do thou come along with me." 
Then there is a great deal of "comic business," 
in which he tries to get Percy on his back to 
carry him in to the King, pretending to have 
killed him himself. When the Falstaff of the 
evening came to this he made one or two inef- 
fectual efforts to get up, and the consequence 
was that the scene of his attempt to lift Percy 
and carry him off went for nothing. There they 
were, Percy dead and Elliston dead-drunk. My 



Memories of Fifty Years. 87 

father, appreciating all this from behind the 
scenes, went on, and improvised some Shak- 
sperian lines, adding to the familiar "Farewell, 
I could have better spared a better man," 
"Meantime, do thou, Jack, come along with 
me," and, hoisting Elliston on his back, he car- 
ried him off the stage, amidst the wildest 
applause. It appeared a tremendous feat of 
strength, the audience forgetting for the moment 
that Falstaff was not so heavy as he looked. 
All the ill temper caused by his drunkenness 
immediately left them and they roared with 
laughter. 

Poor Elliston at last was so overcome with the 
gout that he could not act at all. He was then 
lessee of Drury Lane and my father was his 
stage-manager, appearing in Elliston's old parts, 
Captain Absolute, Charles Surface and the like. 
At that time there was no zoological garden in 
London, but there was a place called Exeter 
Change, in which were kept a lot of monkeys and 
parrots, a few wild animals, some lions (par- 
ticularly the lion Wallace, who fought the six 
bull-dogs), and, if not the first, very nearly the 



88 Memories of Fifty Years. 

first elephant that was ever exhibited alive in 
England. They did not know as much about 
taking care of animals then as they do now, and 
this elephant went mad, and became so danger- 
ous that it was feared he would break out of his 
cage and do bodily damage to his keepers and 
the public, and it was determined he should be 
killed. A dozen men were sent from the bar- 
racks of the Foot Guards, who fired five or six 
volleys into the poor beast before they finished 
him. 

At that time " The Belle's Stratagem " was 
being played with my father as Doricourt, one 
of Elliston's great parts. Elliston was in the 
habit of going to the theatre every night, par- 
ticularly if one of his own celebrated characters 
was performed, and being wheeled down to the 
prompter's place in an invalid's chair, he would 
sit and watch all that was going on. In the 
mad scene in " The Belle's Stratagem " Doricourt, 
who is feigning insanity, has a little extravagant 
" business," and, at a certain exit, he utters some 
wildly absurd nonsense such as, " Bring me a 
pigeon pie of snakes." On the night in question, 



Memories of Fifty Years. 89 

when the town talked of nothing but the great 
brute who had been killed by the soldiers the day 
before, my father on his exit after the mad scene 
shouted : " Bring me a pickled elephant! " to the 
delight of the easily pleased house, but to the 
disgust of the sensitive Elliston, who, shaking 
his gouty fist at him, cried : " Damn it, you lucky 
rascal ; they never killed an elephant for vie when 
/played Doricourt / " 

Many people think that the first man who ever 
made a great impression as a tamer of wild ani- 
mals was Vanamburgh; but long previous to his 
time, and when I was quite a child, there was a 
Monsieur Martin who played in a piece at Drury 
Lane Theatre called " Hyder Ali, or the Lions 
of Mysore." My uncle, Henry Wallack, was Hyder 
AH, an historical character. In this play there 
were things done quite as extraordinary as have 
ever been accomplished by any lion-tamer since. 
I remember it all perfectly well. There was one 
scene in which Martin came on, and managed 
most admirably a fight between himself and two 
boa-constrictors. Although they must have been 
in a comparatively torpid state, as it is said they 



90 Memories of Fifty Years. 

are when being handled, he managed the combat 
so beautifully that the reptiles seemed absolutely 
to be trying to strangle him; and the people 
shouted with applause. Then there was another 
scene in which he was attacked by the retainers 
of Hydcr Ali. He played a sort of Hindoo, who 
supported the English troops. The soldiers of 
Hyder Ali made a rush for him, while two great 
lions, one on each side of him, stood at bay, and, 
as the men advanced with their spears, flew at 
them like fiends. The applause was deafening, 
as much for the soldiers as for the lions, the 
audience wondering what could make these super- 
numeraries so marvellously valiant. The reason, 
however, was simple enough : there was a net- 
work of wire, fine but very strong, between the 
brutes and the soldiers, upon which the lights were 
so ingeniously arranged that it was quite invisible 
from the auditorium. The lions could advance 
no further than this, of course, and as their 
enemies retreated would stop and growl at them 
in the most approved leonine way. There were 
two or three spaces left for the spears to go 
through, and they had been taught when they 



Memories of Fifty Years. 91 

saw one of these, to seize it and shiver it into 
splinters ; and then the people went wild with ap- 
plause. Martin was the most extraordinary man 
I ever saw with animals. My uncle, Henry 
Wallack, as Hyder AH, was supposed to have re- 
pulsed the British, and there was a magnificent 
procession of soldiers, one hundred and fifty at 
least. As the curtain was about to fall Hydcr 
Ali came out mounted on a great big elephant, 
who marched to the music down to the footlights, 
and there stood perfectly still, my uncle Harry 
with his umbrella-bearer behind him looking very 
picturesque. The piece ended with this display. 
I remember perfectly well their putting extra 
props under the stage to keep these heavy ani- 
mals from going through. 

My father was still stage-manager of Drury 
Lane in 1827, when Edmund Kean withdrew his 
allegiance from that house to Covent Garden, to 
the great indignation of Stephen Price, the lessee. 
Kean had placed his son Charles at Eton and was 
bringing him up for the Army, or the Church, or 
some swell profession, and Price was determined, 
knowing the boy had a tremendous predilection 



9 2 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



for the theatre, that he would stick a thorn in 
Edmund Kean's side. Consequently he sent my 
father down to Eton to see the lad; — and the re- 
sult was that he was brought up from school and 
persuaded to go upon the stage by Price, who 
had succeeded in arousing his ambition ; and as 
at that time the elder Kean was treating his wife 
very badly, Charles, of course, was 
less inclined to obey his father. 
When the advertisements came out 
that Kean's son was going to ap- 
pear at Drury Lane Theatre the 
sensation with the public was some- 
thing enormous ; the simple an- 
nouncement affecting Kean's houses 
at Covent Garden. The lad came out as Young 
Norval in Home's tragedy of " Douglas," and my 
father played Glenalvon. He dressed Kean and 
absolutely "shoved" him upon the stage, for he 
was very nervous ; — but he played that night to 
a tremendous house and to a great reception. Of 
course it was a very crude performance, and the 
endeavor to imitate his father in all the passion- 
ate scenes was palpable throughout. For a few 




CHARLES KEAN. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 95 

nights the curiosity of the town crowded the 
house, but the excitement did not continue, and 
he went to the provinces with varying success. 

Charles was always devoted to his mother. 
She travelled about with him in his early days, 
after his father's death, and when he was be- 
tween twenty-five and thirty years of age ; and 
he worked hard to make a mere living for the 
two. During his visits to Brighton he was a 
frequent guest at my father's house, where he 
was sincerely liked. On one occasion it chanced 
that the Duchess of St. Albans was at Brighton 
while he was playing an engagement there. 
Moved by an affectionate feeling for the father, 
with whom (when Miss Mellon) she had often 
acted, she went to the theatre to see the son ; 
and from the moment she saw Charles his for- 
tune was made. She said: "This young man 
shall go to the top of the tree," and he did. 
Her influence in Brighton was all-powerful. 
Her tradespeople, with their families, filled the 
pit, and their working people filled the galleries. 
She made parties for him, and even sent the 
Duke himself to call for him at the Ship Hotel, 



9 6 



Memories of Fifty Year.;. 



Your 'Is 't the King?' in 



what will bring 



where he was staying. The Duchess was the 
queen of fashion, and of course Kean at once 
became popular. This led to his reappearance 
in London. 

I remember being in Kean's dressing-room in 
Brighton when Bunn came in to conclude the 
London engagement. Bunn said : " Don't be 
alarmed; your success is cer- 
tain 

' Hamlet' is 

them." When Bunn went out, 
Kean, who was the most sus- 
picious fellow I ever saw, said : 
" Is that man serious ; is that man 
sincere ? " I don't think that in 
those days he had faith in any- 
bodyexcept Cole, his biographer. 
He subsequently became very intimate with 
the St. Albans family, which included the niece, 
Miss Burdett-Coutts; and when the Duchess 
died the story went around that Kean would have 
no difficulty in winning the hand of the great 
heiress. Miss Ellen Tree, who was acting with 
him, according to rumor had been in love 




MRS. CHARLES KEAN. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



97 



with him for years. He came into the theatre, 
at Dublin, one night and said abruptly: " Ellen, 
if you wish to marry me, to-morrow or never!" 
He was in a white heat of passion, and the story 
was that he had just received a flat rejection from 
Miss Burdett-Coutts. Kean and Miss Tree were 
married the very next day, and on that night, 
by a curious coincidence, they acted in "The 
Honeymoon" together. This story was current 
at the time; I give it as I heard it, but cannot 
vouch for its absolute truth. 

Douglas Jerrold was a great enemy of Charles 
Kean. There was some feud 
between them ; what, I do not 
know; but he never could en- 
dure Charles, and invariably 
spoke of him as "the son of 
his father." Macready, who 
admired the genius of the elder 
Kean, would not have the 
younger at any price, and used 
to refer to him, before his London appearance, as 
"that young man who goes about the country." 

Jerrold wrote "The Rent Day," and the plan 




DOUGLAS JERROLD. 



98 Memories of Fifty Years. 

of the scenery was taken from Sir David Wil- 
kie's great pictures, "The Rent Day" and "Dis- 
training for Rent." The part of Martin Heyzvood 
was written for my father. Sir David Wilkie 
went to see the play and cried like a baby over 
it. I have a letter he wrote to the then lessee 
of the theatre about acting. He subsequently 
sent my father one of the engravings, with his 
autograph beneath. I have the picture now. 
The play made a great success at the time. 

Charles Kean's second visit to America was 
under my father's management, in 1839, an d he 
was to have acted Richard III. in the National 
Theatre, New York, the night it was destroyed 
by fire. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Wm. E. BURTON first came to this country at 
my father's instance and by his advice. Burton 
— as did very many of the debutants from the 
country theatres — had suffered from the envy 
and rivalry of .those already established in the 
good graces of London audiences. He appeared 
in the metropolis, at Covent Garden or Drury 
Lane, as Marall to the Sir Giles Overreach of 
Edmund Kean. Dowton and other esteemed 
favorites had been familiar in this part, and Bur- 
ton had, of course, to suffer the usual agonies of 
comparison. He was discouraged, and, on the 
whole, treated anything but fairly. In his de- 
spondent frame of mind my father, who had met 
him at various provincial theatres and who well 
knew his powers, told him there was a fine field 
open to him in America. Accordingly Burton 



Memories of Fifty Years. 103 

came to the United States. He appeared in 
Philadelphia, was prosperous, became an im- 
mense favorite there, and was also much appre- 
ciated in literary circles, for he 
was an accomplished scholar. 
It was a great pride and pleas- 
ure to my father to be the cause 
of his first appearance in New 
York, and to bring him out 
at the National Theatre. His 
great ability was soon acknowl- 
edged and appreciated, and his 

WILLIAM E. BURTON. 

ultimate success when he took the 
Chambers Street house was a matter of course. 
This leads me to speak here of William 
Mitchell, for a long time Burton's only rival. 
Mitchell was originally a country actor in Eng- 
land. I am not quite certain whether my father 
brought him out or found him here, but at 
any rate he saw him play and was struck with 
his cleverness and quickness. He had been 
stage-manager of some of the provincial cir- 
cuits in England, and my father gave him 
the same position in the National Theatre, 




104 Memories of Fifty Years. 

which was then at the corner of Leonard and 
Church streets. It had been built for an opera 
house, but failed in that capacity, and, when my 
father took it, as I have said, he gave Mitchell 
direction of the stage. I was over here on a 
mere visit then in 1838, just as the country was 
recovering from the great money panic of that 
year; when they had "shin plasters," as they 
called them, instead of money, as we had during 
the late war. In the very zenith of the theatre's 
success it was burned, and the company of course 
was thrown out of employment. My father, w 7 ho 
was a good deal knocked down at first, " shook 
his feathers," and as he had people coming whom 
he had engaged in England he had to find some 
place for them, so he took Niblo's Garden and 
there brought out John Vandenhoff's daughter, 
who made an immense success ; which was very 
fortunate, because it enabled him to employ a 
number of actors who would otherwise have been 
idle and without salaries. When his short lease 
at Niblo's expired he went back to England ; and 
Mitchell as well as the others had to cast about 
them for what they could get. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



°5 



Mitchell finally took the building at 444 
Broadway, next door to Tattersall's, and turned 
it into the Olympic Theatre. He made it a 
cheap house and inaugurated what was the first 
reduction in prices; namely, twelve and a half 
cents to the pit. He began to produce travesties 
on everything that was played anywhere else. 
He had an actor named Horncastle, 
who had been a tenor singer in my 
father's company at the National, a 
fellow who had some talent for turn- 
ing serious matter into burlesque. 
When, for instance, the opera- of 
" Zampa, the Red Corsair," was 
brought out, they travestied it and 
called it " Sam Parr and his Red, 
Coarse Hair." This was the beginning of Mitch- 
ell's prosperity. He displayed immense activity 
in getting everything new which was farcical and 
burlesque. He was ahead of everybody else, 
and the consequence was that his house was 
crowded every night. I rather think that under 
his management Chanfrau first came out as 
Mose. Mitchell used to talk to the boys in the 




CHANFRAU. 



ioO Memories of Fifty Years. 

pit, who paid their shilling for admission, and 
if they were particularly noisy, or misbehaved 
themselves in any way, he would go on and 
make a speech, saying, perhaps, " Boys, if 
you don't behave I '11 raise the price to a 
quarter, as sure as you live ! " A very effectual 
threat. 

The first serious check Mitchell received was 
from Burton, who was a very shrewd and exceed- 
ingly clever man. He saw from a distance, from 
his eyrie in Philadelphia, what Mitchell was doing ; 
and he came here and took the Chambers Street 
Theatre, before long completely smothering 
Mitchell by doing the things he did ; only doing 
them much better. He was a whole host in him- 
self, certainly the first low comedian of his time. 
From the opening of the Chambers Street house 
Mitchell's Olympic went down ; there is no doubt 
about that. Burton at last literally snuffed him 
out ; and that, in very brief, is the history of 
Mitchell's theatre. Burton took care to present 
everything with a little better scenery, and a 
good deal better casts, and then he engaged John 
Brougham, who was worth fifty Horncastles. It 



Memories of Fifty Years. 107 

was the very strongest attraction in New York 
for a very long time. 

My father made thirty-five passages across the 
Atlantic in the old packet ships, before the day of 
steamers. On the occasion of one of his depart- 
ures for America, the Drury Club — a branch of 
the Beefsteak Club — presented him with a gold 
gridiron with a gold beefsteak upon it, the whole 
designed by Clarkson Stanfield. Underneath 
the steak the following inscription by Beaz- 
ley, a celebrated wit and the architect who built 
the present Lyceum Theatre, was engraved : 
" Presented to J. W. Wallack, Esqr., on his De- 
parture to America, by the Members of the 
Drury Club, May, 1832," with the clever motto, 
"A steak in both countries, a broil in neither." 

He never could endure the ballet, and some 
of his fashionable friends used to remonstrate 
with him on the subject at the time when the 
ballet was an essential thing, and when it fol- 
lowed every opera as a matter of course, being 
recognized as an indispensable finish to the night's 
entertainment. But in those days we had, to be 
sure, Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, Cerito, and Carlotta 



108 Memories of Fifty Years. 

Grisi. At last a friend of his, a well-known man 
about town, said to him: "My dear Wallack, it 
is very curious that you do not see the beauties 
of imagination shown by the poses of the ballet," 
and so on. My father, getting out of patience, 
replied : " Look here, it is hard enough to stand 
these absurdities in an opera, and though I can 
comprehend people singing their joys, I am 
damned if I can understand their dancing their 
griefs." 

However, while he was the manager of the 
National in New York he succumbed to the 
popular demands for a dance or a song between 
the two plays, for there was then always a double 
bill, and he made a very liberal offer to Signor 
De Begnis, the vocalist, to go with him to 
America. De Begnis agreed, and it was under- 
stood that he was to give little snatches from the 
operas — songs from Rossini's "Barbiere," and 
all those pieces in which the celebrated baritone 
parts occur — and out he came. At that time I 
was waiting for an appointment which I had 
been promised in the army, and my father very 
much wanted me first to see the land in which I 




SIGNOR DE BEGNIS. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 1 1 1 

had been born. The National Theatre had fin- 
ished one season, and my father had gone to 
England to make his engagements for the next 
He brought out then with him some people who 
became very celebrated afterwards : Mr. Wil- 
son, the tenor singer; Seguin and Miss ShirrefT. 
They went in another vessel, but De Begnis 
took passage with us in a sailing ship called the 
''Quebec." This was in the year 1838, and we 
were wind-bound for some days at Portsmouth. 
De Begnis was with us at the hotel there, with 
one or two friends and members of my father's 
company who were to be our fellow-passengers. 
De Begnis was delighted at the idea of going 
to America, and extremely delighted at the idea 
of going to sea ; but he evidently had not the 
slightest idea what a sea voyage was like, beyond 
a smooth-water trip to Dublin which he had 
made in some of the steamboats. This was just 
a few months before steamers started running 
across the Atlantic. The ship that was to take 
us to America was at Spithead, Portsmouth, 
waiting for the wind to change. It was a violent 
head-wind, and the captain decided, as there was 



112 Memories of Fifty Years. 

a great deal of business to be done with the 
agents at Portsmouth, that he would not start 
until the wind was in the right quarter; so we 
took it as easy as we could in the hotel there. 
De Begnis made up his mind one morning to 
make a visit to the vessel at Spithead, about five 
or six miles from Portsmouth, which he did, go- 
ing out in one of the fine, large pilot boats of 
those waters. He was awfully frightened because 
there was rather a sea on, and when he got 
aboard the ship he was so pleased to find him- 
self alive that he would not go back. While we 
were waiting dinner for him the boat returned, 
bringing a note from him to my father, written 
in French and reading: "Pray send up to my 
room, get all my packages and send them off to 
the ship. I could not dare venture back, for je 
n'aime pas la danse du petit bateau ! " 

Well, when we started, as we did at last as 
soon as the gale moderated, De Begnis, who was 
never for a moment seasick, was the most nerv- 
ous creature I ever saw in my life. When he 
came up on deck wrapped in a huge velvet cloak 
and wearing a black velvet cap, he used to ex- 



Memories of Fifty Years. 113 

press wonder at everything he saw. It happened 
a couple of nights after we sailed that the cap- 
tain, thinking it was coming on to blow, sent 
aloft to shorten sail. De Begnis said to him : 
" Oh, ah, mon Capitaine, de man ! what he go up 
dere for, why he go up the pole ? " meaning the 
mast. " He is going up to reef the topsail," re- 
plied the captain. " To do what ? " " To reef 
the topsail." "To reefa de top of de sail ? Inde 
dark ? Mon Dieu ! now he go higher, and with- 
out a candle ! " 

He was about six feet in height, — a very large 
man, — with a tremendous portly kind of bear- 
ing, and it was all the more funny to see the 
awful funk he was in if it blew in the slightest 
degree ; the only time he was really happy being 
when it was a dead calm. When all the passen- 
gers were blaspheming at the delay he would 
say: "Ah, it is beautiful; it is a callum to-day. I 
am notafright ; when it blow I am afright ; to-day 
it is a callum, and I go to play veest ! " 

I used to climb to the mizzentop very often with 
my book in my pocket, and sit there with my 
arm around a rope and read by the hour. The 



114 Memories of Fifty Years. 

first time De Begnis saw me going up the shrouds 
he said : " Ha ! look atde young Wallack ! Don't 
go up dere, you fools ; suppose de strings was to 
broke, you 'd go to de devil in de water ! " One 
night it was blowing very hard, and the ship was 
" taken aback," which is a very dangerous thing, 
and my father, who was an old sailor, knew what 
it meant, and sung out to the steward : " Shut in 
the deadlights ! " The next morning it was all 
right again, the sea had gone down, and De 
Begnis, who had been awfully scared, said : " I 
was not the only one afright ; there was the old 
Wallack, he was afright ; I hear him call to de 
steward to give him a light to die by ! " The 
first day out we were what is called " on the 
wind," and the vessel was lying over pretty well. 
De Begnis, with nothing on but his drawers and 
shirt, put his body half-way into the main cabin 
and called out : " Steward ! where de devil is de 
steward ! Aska de capitaine why de ship she goes 
so crook ! Tell him de Signor de Begnis cannot 
shave ! " He stood one day by the wheel and 
said : " What de devil that man he do, he turn 
de wheel around ? " The captain replied : " He 



Memories of Fifty Years. 115 

steers the vessel." " What is dat he keep a-look- 
ing at like a damn fool ? " " That is the compass ; 
he watches the compass and steers the vessel by 
it." " Ha ! dat is a umpick " [humbug]. " How 
do you suppose we find our way across the ocean 
then?" asked the captain. " You get de ship 
by de shore, you put up de sail, de wind she blow, 
and you go dis way and dat way. Sometimes 
de straight way, and after a while you get dere 
by chance, God knows how ! And yet you tell 
me dat de man he make her go straight when he 
turn de wheel round? Umpick ! All umpick ! " 

Although he longed to go back to his own 
country he never had the courage. He arrived 
in the year 1838 and died here of cholera in 
1849. When I came over to make my appear- 
ance, ten years after this voyage, I found De 
Begnis here singing at concerts and all that kind 
of thing. He had money of his own too. He 
used to say : " Why de devil your father he go 
so often across de ocean ? Some day he go to 
play Don Ccesar de Bazan with de fish." 

Mr. Tom Hamblin, a very old friend of my 
father's, came to him one day during his 



I lb 



Memories of Fifty Years. 




management of the National Theatre, and said 
that he had discovered a remarkable genius. 
Hamblin had then just married a Miss Medina, 
a literary lady, and whether 
it was his wife or himself 
who had made this great 
discovery I do not remem- 
ber ; but that does not 
matter. He said : " This is 
an extraordinary girl ; she 
is the daughter of a dread- 
ful old woman, who is any- 
thing but what she should 
be; but she is herself a charming little creature. 
The old mother has been able to keep her at 
school, and the child is a pure, sweet little thing, 
seventeen years old. My wife has written an 
adaptation of Bulwer's 'Ernest Maltravers,' and 
here will be a great chance for a sensation, if 
you will bring out the play and engage the girl, 
who is now under my tuition and under my 
wife's chaperonage. We want to keep her out 
of this dreadful ditch in which her mother and 
her associates are floundering ; and the mother 
has given her to us to take care of." 



THOMAS HAMBLIN. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



117 



My father answered, "Very well," and he en- 
gaged Mr. Hamblin and his protegee, having first, 
of course, read the play. He found that there 
was a part in it called Richard Darvil, very 
cleverly adapted and amplified, and that Miss 
Medina had carried the scene into Italy and had 
turned him from an English highway robber into 
a sort of brigand hero, all of which she did to fit 
my father's romantic style. My father played 
Richard Darvil, Hamblin played Ernest, C. W. 
Clarke, I think, was in the cast, the little prodigy, 
who was called " Miss Missou- 
ri," appeared as Alice, and the 
drama made an enormous hit. 
What follows is very curious 
and very sad. 

There was, of course, much 
gossip about the heroine, be- 
cause of her decided ability, 
her beauty and her romantic 
story ; and it was more than 
insinuated that she was one of Hamblin's vic- 
tims, and that Mrs. Hamblin, who had taken 
her out of -the gutter, had written this part for 
her and helped create the great sensation for 




C. W. CLARKE. 



I 1 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



her, was fully aware of the fact. Well, houses 
were crowded. Hamblin was a general favorite, 
and my father, of course, was enormously popu- 
lar; but the great thing was this girl. When the 
play was in its zenith Miss Missouri was taken 
suddenly ill and died in the very midst of her 
great success. The old woman 
(the mother) reported that she 
had been ruined by Hamblin, 
and that this Miss Medina in 
revenge had poisoned her. The 
story went about, and there was 
the most terrific row that can 
possibly be imagined. Hamblin 
could hardly appear, for fear of 
being mobbed. Of course, my 
father had to stop the run of 
the play for the moment ; and, indeed, I think 
before she died that my father had given up 
the part of RicJiard Darvil, Hamblin taking it, 
and young James Wallack, my cousin, playing 
Ernest Maltravers. I think my father had some 
engagement to fulfil elsewhere out of his own 
theatre. At any rate, the poor girl died, and it 




JAMES W. WALLACE, JR. 






Memories of Fifty Years. 119 

is certain that Hamblin's enemies made the most 
of the matter. But at last it all blew over. I 
do not for a moment believe that Hamblin was 
responsible for the girl's death, but that she died 
of consumption, being naturally very delicate. 

I remember very w T ell dining with Hamblin 
and his wife (who retained her nom de plume, 
" Medina ") during the following year. She was 
one of the most brilliant women I ever met. She 
was very plain, but a wonderfully bright woman, 
charming in every way. Well, while I was here 
on that visit, and a very short time after that 
very dinner at which I was present, she died also, 
and this old woman, the mother of Missouri, 
immediately went about swearing that Hamblin 
was then living with somebody else, and that 
between them they had killed his wife. I was 
at the Astor House, where we were stopping 
then, and my father came- home a good deal 
worried and flustered. He had been sent for by 
Hamblin, who was there with the corpse in the 
house. A mob had gathered around the door, 
and they were going to batter it down and kill 
Hamblin ; the terrible old woman haranguing 



i 20 Memories of Fifty Years. 

all the Bowery people she had collected together 
for that purpose. She said that he was not con- 
tent, after causing the murder of her own child, 
until he had murdered the murderess ; and noth- 
ing but my father's personal popularity quieted 
that mob. He got on the steps of the house 
and made a speech to them. She was a horri- 
ble sight, this old woman, with her long white 
witch-like hair flying about her face, in appear- 
ance a perfect Meg Merrilies. 

I remember one of Hamblin's great parts was 
in the adaptation of a novel called " Norman 
Leslie," in which he played the hero. He was 
playing that part among others when Miss Me- 
dina was taken ill. She was not the mother of 
any of his children. I remember the younger 
Tom Hamblin when the Theatrical Fund was 
first started here. They used to have a Fund 
Dinner and the plate was sent around ; and a 
magnificent success it was at first. I don't know 
why they ever gave it up. Once when Colonel 
Henry Stebbins presided, my father sitting on 
his right and Burton on his left (they dined at 
the Astor House), to the astonishment of the 



Memories of Fifty Years. 121 

two hundred persons who were present, as the 
dessert came on, this handsome little boy in a 
jacket walked calmly around the tables till he 
came to the chairman, when he presented a paper 
which read : " The widow of Thomas Hamblin 
[Mrs. Shaw] sends his son to express her wishes 
for the success of the Theatrical Fund." Ham- 
blin married Mrs. Shaw after Miss Medina's 
death. 



CHAPTER V. 

When Lord Lytton wrote " Money" early in 
the forties, my father was engaged in the Hay- 
market Theatre, and was acting with Macready. 
One day he came to the house and said : " Jack, 
here is a great chance for you. You can read 
'Money,' the play which they say is going to 
out-celebrate ' The School for Scandal.' They 
want to ring me into it, but I do not see anything 
in it I can do." When I had read the manu- 
script I exclaimed : " Good Heavens, it will take 
three weeks to play it once through." It was 
terribly long, and certainly it would have taken 
a good six hours. My father said : " Macready 
and Bulwer want me to play Captain Dudley 
Smooth ; I have read the part but have not read 
the play, so you can tell me what you think of 
it." Well, I sat up all night over it, and felt it a 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



123 



tremendous compliment to have a chance to read 
the comedy which was to set the whole town on 
fire. My father then read the play, and told Sir 
Edward and Macready that he could not see him- 
self in the part, and that he was perfectly sure he 
could not do it justice. Macready said : "Will 
you let me read the part to you as /conceive it ? " 
My father of course consented, 
and Macready came to the house 
for that purpose, and when he 
had finished my father said: " I 
can see the merit of the part, 
but I do not see the merit of 
Mr. Wallack in it. Do you think 
Sir Edward would allow me to 
make a suggestion?" Macready 
said he thought so, and my fa- 
ther continued : " You have the 
very man for the part in the theater — Wrench." 
The result was that Wrench was the original 
Smooth and played it admirably. 

The first night the piece seemed to the audi- 
ence unconscionably long, and some of the very 
scenes that afterwards became most celebrated, 




BULWER-LYTTON. 



124 Memories of Fifty Years. 

and most liked, were hissed. I do not know why ; 
probably it may have been because of Sir Ed- 
ward's personal or political enemies who were 
in the house, or perhaps the audience thought it 
too bold a departure from the old style. At all 
events there was a good deal of doubt about its 
success. But it was continued ; people got used 
to it ; Mr. Webster pushed it, and the conse- 
quence was that it began to grow popular after 
about the twentieth night, and it was destined to 
enjoy a long run. Years afterwards, when Ma- 
cready was in this country, he was asked to play 
the part of Alfred Evelyn, and he is reported to 
have replied : " I will not play that damned 
'walking gentleman' any more." 

There are very few people now living, strange 
to say, who remember much of Macready's act- 
ing. I do not know why, because it is not so 
long since he retired, but, I think that some 
description of his style and method would be 
interesting here. 

I was struck one day at rehearsal by a little 
altercation, although not a very ill-natured one, 
between two members of my company, one a 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



\2 



lady and the other a gentleman. The lady said : 
" Mr. Wallack, may I request Mr. Blank not to 
reply too quickly upon the ends of my speeches?" 
I turned to him and said : " Do not be quite so 
quick in your cues." He 
replied : " I see what 
you mean, Mr. Wallack, 
but I have not been 
used to these Macready 
pauses. " I was puzzled to 
know what was meant 
by " Macready pauses," 
but the thing passed by 
only to occur again, when 
another gentleman of my 
company, who was relat- 
ing an anecdote, said : 
"Well, she made one of 
those ' Macready pau- 
ses,' " and then I began 
to think seriously what 
the phrase might mean, 
and on the next occa- 
sion, which was the third 




W. C. MACREADY. 



126 Memories of Fifty Years. 

time I had heard it, I said : "Stop," my patience 
being rather exhausted. "What do you mean by 
' Macready pauses ? ' All you people, who have 
never seen Mr. Macready, but have merely heard 
of him as an eminent tragedian, seem to have a 
ridiculous idea about this ; tell me what you mean 
by ' Macready pauses ? ' " They replied : "Well, 
we have always heard that phrase used, Mr. 
Wallack." I replied that Mr. Macready was no 
more given to making unnecessary pauses than 
any other actor I ever knew, and that if he did 
make a pause there was a purpose in it, a mean- 
ing and a motive, which was always evident by 
its effect on the audience. 

There never was a man more effective than 
Mr. Macready, and in certain of his famous 
parts, since acted by other eminent artists, I 
have never seen anybody to equal him. Sir 
Frederick Pollock gives no idea of his acting 
at all. He does not show where Macready 
made his great effects. Macready, if he was 
anything in the world, was a student, and a 
great characteristic of his acting was that he was 
always in earnest; he never was guilty of what is 



Memories of Fifty Years. 127 

called playing to his audience. The elder Kean 
sometimes did this ; but Macready never. His 
eye and his heart and his mind and his feeling 
were always with the author, always what the 
French call en scene. I remember in a play called 
"Nina Sforza," in which Miss Faucit and my father 
supported him, one speech of his that greatly 
impressed me. His profile was towards the 
house as he stood facing the actor upon the stage; 
and looking directly at his enemy he uttered the 
most bitter of speeches as an aside, making his 
audience understand fully that what he seemed 
to speak he only thought. I do not remember 
any other actor who could have accomplished 
this as he did it. He had a marvellous command 
of voice. His even speaking in its way was the 
most melodious I ever heard. In a whirlwind of 
passion I have known many voices more power- 
ful and quite as effective, but I remember nothing 
in really classical acting anything so beautiful as 
Macready in what we used to call " even-speak- 
ing." 

In this piece of " Nina Sforza " my father 
played a part called Raphael Doria. The drama 



128 Memories of Fifty Years. 

was founded on the feuds of the Dorias and the 
Spinolas, in which the Dorias had been victorious 
and had completely ruined their enemies. This 
man Ugone Spinola had been pardoned by Doria, 
who had made a sort of companion of him out of 
pity, and because he had ruined him, and Spinola 
followed Doria everywhere ; ministered to his 
pleasures, tempted him to do everything that 
was evil, and in fact was insidiously leading him 
to his ruin. In one scene of the play Macready 
as Ugone had a soliloquy that was superbly 
given. The lines, as well as I remember them, 
began : 

" O Doria, Doria, 
When wilt thou pay me back the many groans, 
The tears, I 've wept in secret. 



When the red currents ran Spinola blood, 

And all our old ancestral palaces 

Were charred and levelled with the cumbent earth, 

In irreparable and endless shame." 

During this entire speech he played with his 
dagger in a nervous, semi-unconscious manner, 
drawing it half-way out of its sheath and letting 



Memories of Fifty Years. 129 

it fall back, to be half withdrawn again. This 
action, simple as it appeared, emphasized most 
significantly the vengeful spirit of the words 
he uttered. It was a well-written play. Helen 
Faucit was excellent in it and my father had a 
very fine part. 

I remember one night, when walking home 
with my father from the Haymarket Theatre 
after the performance, which had been the play 
of "Virginius," that I asked him if he thought 
anything could be finer than Macready's acting 
of the titular part. He replied: "My boy, you 
cannot excel perfection !" 

I stood in front of the Astor Place Opera 
House on the night of the famous Macready- 
Forrest riot where the crowd was thickest, with 
my back to the railings of Mrs. Langdon's house, 
and when the military (the eighth company of 
the Seventh Regiment) came up there were, cu- 
rious to say, a great many women in the crowd. 
After the second volley was fired I heard a cry 
from behind me, and turned to see a man seated 
on the railings of Mrs. Langdon's house. He 
had been shot, and with a groan toppled over to 



130 Memories of Fifty Years. 



the ground at my feet. I afterwards saw him 
lying dead at the hospital. After the firing I left 
the porch of the Union Club, then in Broadway, 
where I had taken refuge, with a " man about 
town," well known as " Dandy Marks." We 
stopped at a restaurant on Broadway and found 
there a crowd made up of all sorts of people dis- 
cussing this riot. The towm was in a fearful con- 
dition, and for several days after was like a city 
in a state of siege. Some were saying it was a 
rascally thing that the people should be shot 
down and murdered in the streets, and others 
were arguing that the military had only done 
their duty. Marks naturally was all on the side 
of the military, because he commanded a troop 
of horse which dressed after the English 10th 
Hussars, and was composed of young men of the 
best families in the city. One debater got so 
extremely excited discussing the riot that the 
tears ran down his face, and at length in a sort of 
frenzy he took off his coat and began " letting 
out " at everybody around him, no matter 
whether his victims were on his side of the 
question or not. He hit here, and there, and 



Memories of Fifty Years. 131 

cracked right, left and center, clearing the whole 
place in a very few moments. When the thing 
was over Marks was not to be found ; and I had 
retired early myself! 

Forrest in the engagement during which the 
riots occurred played Macbeth, and when the 
lines came : " What rhubarb, senna or what 
purgative drug will scour these English hence?" 
the whole house rose and cheered for many 
minutes. 

Fredericks, an actor who died recently, was an 
exceedingly good-looking, tall and finely built 
man. He was an Irishman, and of rather a cynical 
and jealous nature. Macready, who was always 
rather dictatorial, worried Fredericks a good deal 
at rehearsals, and Fredericks, on Macready's last 
visit here, chanced to see him play Othello. 
Now it is a fact that the great tragedian's ap- 
pearance in " Othello " was very opposite to, and 
very much belied, the beauty of his acting. He 
wore a big negro-looking wig, and a long gown, 
in which he was very awkward ; indeed he looked 
more like a very tall woman than a soldierly 
man. Fredericks was afterwards at a party, at 



132 Memories of Fifty Years. 

which there was a great deal too much praise of 
Macready floating about to please him ; and at 
last he was appealed to for his opinion, and said : 
" I have nothing to say about the man's acting! 
But he looked like an elderly negress, of evil 
repute, going to a fancy ball ! " 






CHAPTER VI. 



While I was still a member of Mr. Webster's 
company, to go back to the story of my own 
career, Mr. George H. Barrett, who had come to 
England to make engagements for a new theatre 
which was building on Broadway, near the corner 
of Anthony Street, New York, and which was to 
be called " The Broadway," went 
to the Haymarket, saw me, and 
thought he had found the very 
thing he wanted for America. He 
came to my mother's house and 
asked: "When does this season 
end ? " I told him, and he said : 
" Well, now, what are you get- 
ting here ? " " Six pounds a 
week," a very good salary in those days. He 
replied : " Well, I will give you eight, if you will 
go to the States." It was a great temptation, 




GEORGE H. BARRETT. 



134 Memories of Fifty Years. 

because it secured to me the first line of comedy 
and because my father was then in America ; so 
I closed with him at once, and at the end of the 
Haymarket season sailed via the Cunard line, 
which then went to Boston only. There I saw 
my father, who was just about to start for 
England. 

This was the cause of my coming to America 
as an actor. I opened the Broadway Theatre, 
playing Sir Charles Coldstream, fell through a 
trap on the first night and nearly got killed. The 
stage had been built in a very hurried manner. 
Jumping on the trap, it gave way and I went 
through, but fortunately had presence of mind 
enough to catch myself by the elbows. I picked 
myself up uninjured, and had one of the greatest 
receptions I ever remember. I was the success 
of the evening, so the newspapers said. In those 
days I lived on Broadway, at a boarding-house 
kept by a Mrs. Black near Broome Street. 
Wallack's Theatre, strangely enough, afterwards 
stood on that very spot. 

The Broadway Theatre was built by, or for, 
one Col. Alvah Mann. The first season was 




BROADWAY THEATRE, NEAR ANTHONY STREET. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 137 

a losing one. There was a succession of man- 
agers, things were going very badly, and Mr. 
George Barrett finally gave up the stage man- 
agement, which devolved upon Mr. James Wal- 
lack, Jr., my cousin ; it then came into the hands 
of Mr. George VandenhofT ; at last it came to 
Mr. William Rufus Blake, and then was pro- 
duced Boucicault's " Old Heads and Young 
Hearts," with Mr. Blake as Jesse Rural. The 
drama, which had never been done here before, 
brought up the fortunes of the theatre again. 
The next season Mr. Blake was still stage-man- 
ager, and we repeated various plays. Mr. For- 
rest had a very successful engagement there, dur- 
ing which I played Cassio to his Othello. Then 
James Anderson played an engagement, and I 
acted with him. I supported Forrest too in the 
"Broker of Bogota," and that was the first idea 
I got that I could do some serious work. 

The fortunes of the theatre went down once 
more, until at last an actor named George Andrews 
got hold of a book which was exciting and inter- 
esting the whole town. It was Dumas's " Count 
of Monte- Cristo." Andrews made a drama- 







138 Memories of Fifty Years, 

tization of it, and offered it as a holiday piece, 
to be brought out on Christmas night. Mr. 
Blake came to me and told me about it. I said 
it was capable of making an 
excellent drama. He replied : 
"The drama is made; and you 
must play Mo7ite- Cristo. " " Good 
Heavens, I cannot," said I. "You 
must do this or -the theatre will 
close/' he answered ; " we have 
no one else to do it." I was in 
a horrible fright, for I had never 
attempted anything of the kind ; but I said : 
" Very well, I will try it, and if I fail it will not 
be my fault." The consequence was an immense 
success — one of the first plays that rivaled 
"Richard III." and "London Assurance " by a 
run of one hundred nights. Fanny Wallack, my 
cousin, played Haidee and Mr. Fredericks played 
Fernand. Hadaway was in the piece and played 
Caderousse. It was the great hit of the season, 
and the thing that saved the theatre from bank- 
ruptcy. It was from Monte- Cristo that I got what 
celebrity I ever had in melodramatic characters, 



THOMAS HADAWAY. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



l 39 



and, singular to say, most of the greatest suc- 
cesses I ever had were in parts which were a 
mixture of the serious and comic, like " The 
Romance of a Poor Young Man," " Jessie 
Brown," " Rosedale " and " The Streets of New 
York." 

I first met George VandenhofT at the Broadway 
Theatre, where it seems he had made an engage- 
ment with Colonel Mann, in which he stipulated 
that he should not be held inferior to any one in 
the company. In other words, he was to be 
strictly the leading man. When 
Mr. Blake came into the stage 
management he advocated making 
a star theatre of it, and among 
other stars he engaged was my 
cousin, Mr. James Wallack, Jr. 
The opening play was " Othello," 
in which Wallack was cast for 
Othello, as a matter of course, and 
VandenhofT for Iago. About half- 
past six, the curtain being supposed to rise at sev- 
en, there was no Mr. VandenhofT in the theatre. 
They sent a message to his lodgings or his hotel, 




GEORGE VANDENHOFF. 



140 Memories of Fifty Years. 

or wherever he was, to know whether he was aware 
of the lateness of the hour. The messenger came 
back and reported that Mr. VandenhofT was out 
and had left no word as to when he would return. 
The time approached for the commencement 
of the performance. Mr. Wallack was waiting, 
dressed for Othello ; I was waiting, dressed for 
Cassio, which I was to play that night; every- 
body was waiting, dressed for everything. No 
Mr. VandenhofT, no message, until about five 
minutes before the curtain should have risen, 
when a note did arrive at last from him, explain- 
ing that as his name in the bills and advertise- 
ments did not appear in equal prominence with 
Mr. Wallack's he did not intend to play at all. 
There was naturally a great deal of indignation 
expressed on the part of the management ; the 
audience were becoming impatient, and eventu- 
ally Mr. Blake went upon the stage before the 
curtain to explain the cause of the delay. He 
spoke to this effect : 

" Ladies and gentlemen : I am very sorry to 
appear before you as an apologist. We shall 
give you the play, but without Mr. VandenhofT, 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



141 



who, not ten minutes ago, sent word that he 
would not act because his name did not appear in 
the bills in equal type with Mr. James Wallack's. 
It has been left to the management to give you 
an acceptable substitute in the person of Mr. 
Dyott, who, at this singularly short notice, will 
appear as Iago. [Great applause.] We have 
given you the best possible rem- 
edy for the disappointment, and 
we leave it to you to give Mr. 
VandenhofThis just deserts when- 
ever he shall appear before you 
again." 

The result of this was a very 
successful performance of the 
tragedy and a challenge from 
Mr. VandenhofT to Mr. Blake. Mr. Thomas 
Placide consented to act as Mr. Blake's second. 
The affair, however, was patched up by the inter- 
ference of mutual friends and no blood was shed. 

Mr. Blake, off the stage as well as on, was a 
positive epitome of fun and humor. There was 
a gentleman in the company named Hind, who 
came to him one day with the pomposity which 




JOHN DYOTT. 



142 Memories of Fifty Years. 

I have generally remarked prevails in a greater 
degree among the lesser luminaries of the stage 
than among the greater, and said : 

" Mr. Blake, I have ob- 
served an omission in the 
bills with regard to my 
name." 

Mr. Blake turned around 
from the managerial table 
and gazed at him with some 
surprise. 

"Mr. Hind, what is the 
thomas placide. omission ? " 

"I have always been particular, sir, about my 
initials; they are not in the bill." 

Mr. Blake, without asking him what his initials 
were, said very solemnly: 

"Mr. Hind, the omission shall be rectified." 
The consequence was that in the next bill in 
which the gentleman's name occurred Mr. Blake 
put "The Character of so and so by Mr. B. 
Hind," which, of course, caused a great deal of 
amusement in the company and a great deal 
of indignation on the part of Mr. Hind, whose 




Memories of Fifty Years. 



143 






initials were T. J., but who was called " Mr. 
Behind" ever after. 

On another occasion Mr. Blake had to deal 
with a gentleman of a somewhat higher style 
of ambition, whom we will call Jones. On the 
2 2d of February a patriotic play was produced, 
which concluded with the appearance of the 
figure of Washington surrounded by every sort 
of emblem of patriotism — in fact, in a blaze of 
glory. Mr. Jones said to the stage-manager: 

"Mr. Blake, I have frequently played the part 
that you have cast me for in this piece. I repre- 
sent the officer who carries the 
flag of our nation, and I have 
always, in that particular scene 
in which I carried it, been accus- 
tomed to sing 'The Star-Spangled 
Banner.'" Mr. Blake replied: 

"But a song here is entirely 
out of place ; it will be an inter- 
ruption to the course of the play, 
and on this occasion I cannot consent to its intro- 
duction. We cannot sacrifice the play on that 
account," Mr. Jones replied : 




WILLIAM RUFUS BLAKE. 



144 Memories of Fifty Years. 

"Mr. Blake, if I am to play this part I must 
sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' My name 
has invariably been in the bills with the addition 
of this line: 'In which he will sing "The Star- 
Spangled Banner." Mr. Blake persevered in 
his denial of the request, when Jones drew him- 
self up to his full height, which, by the bye, was 
not above five feet four, and majestically said: 

"Mr. Blake, I wish it to be recorded that I 
insist upon being billed as singing ' The Star- 
Spangled Banner.'" 

Blake declined any further conversation on 
the subject. But in the bill he wrote: "The 
Character of so and so by Mr. Jones, in which 
he insists upon singing 'The Star-Spangled 
Banner ! ' " 

John Brougham in the mean time left Burton 
to go into management for himself at the little 
theatre on Broadway, near Broome Street, built 
for him and called "Brougham's Lyceum." Bur- 
ton engaged Mr. Blake and myself; and having 
Mrs. Russell, afterwards so well known as Mrs. 
Hoey, and also Mrs. Vernon, Mr. Jordan and 
Mr. Tom Johnston, a strong combination, he 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



45 






wisely determined to present the old comedies, 
which became his staple commodity for that sea- 
son and the next. At the end of the first of 
these I went to England, where I found my 
father rapidly recovering from what had been a 
very serious illness; and under the advice of his 
physicians I persuaded him to return to America 
with me. During the season which 
followed our arrival I was still ful- 
filling my second engagement 
at Burton's ; and all this time 
Brougham's management was, as 
he himself described it to me, "a 
struggle ; things continually going 
from bad to worse." 

It having been ascertained that george jordan. 

Brougham must positively retire from the man- 
agement, Major Rogers, the owner, determined 
to offer the house to my father, and the story 
of the transaction is rather a curious one, and 
perhaps worth repeating. They had various 
meetings on the subject of a lease, my father 
thinking the rent demanded too high, and Rog- 
ers that it was not high enough ; and they had 




146 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



all those little disagreements which occur be- 
tween people who are striking a bargain. They 
met finally on the stage one day, when the 
theatre was quite empty and in charge of a jani- 
tor, and my father said: "Well, my dear Major 
Rogers, that ends the affair. I have made the 
best proposal I can afford, and therefore we must, 
I suppose, let the matter drop; 
but although the house is not a 
very good one, not so full as I 
could wish, I will try to explain 
to the audience." Whereupon he 
walked down the stage and ad- 
dressed the empty seats as follows : 
" Ladies and gentlemen, in con- 
sequence of the impossibility of a 
definite arrangement between Major 
Rogers and myself, I beg first to tender to him 
my thanks for the patience with which he has lis- 
tened to my unsuccessful arguments, and to offer 
to you my regrets that the kind and flattering 
desires that have been expressed, through the 
newspapers and by many of you individually, 
that I should have the honor of catering for your 




MRS. VERNON. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 147 

amusement here cannot be realized." He then 
bowed and turned up the stage to go out at the 
stage-door, when Major Rogers cried: "Stop! 
stop ! That 's enough ; I consent to every- 
thing ! " and the bargain was struck. The first 
thing my father did when he took possession of 
the Lyceum was to engage Brougham and Blake, 
and naturally, of course, I also cast in my fort- 
une with him and became his stage-manager and 
leading man. 

A lady came to me one day and said she had 
heard that we were going to bring out a bur- 
lesque written by John Brougham and called 
" Pocahontas." This was a Miss Georgiana Hod- 
son, one of the handsomest women I ever saw. 
My father was ill in bed at this time, and I talked 
the matter over with her. I thought she looked 
like the sort of woman we wanted for the part. 
She had played in Boston, where she was a favor- 
ite, but she was anxious to make a New York 
appearance; so she was engaged and "Poca- 
hontas" was produced with great success. The 
piece was immensely clever and Brougham and 
Walcot were delightful in it. There was a Mr. 



148 Memories of Fifty Years. 

Fred Lyster in the company who was spoiling 
to do something more than play simple parts in 
Wallack's Theatre. He was a musical man and 
he worked matters until at last he persuaded 
Miss Hodson that there was a gold mine wait- 
ing for her in California. One night, when I 
had acted in the first piece and was, as my 
father's representative, looking 
after matters, the prompter came 
to me in a great hurry and said: 
"Mr. Wallack, Miss Hodson has 
n't arrived." I replied: "The 
first piece is over; she must be 
here; she must certainly be dress- 
ing by this time." "She has 
not arrived, sir," reiterated the 
prompter. I thought she might 
be ill, and sent to her residence to inquire; but 
Miss Hodson had gone, bag and baggage, and the 
position the management was in was a very pecu- 
liar one indeed. "Pocahontas " was a great attrac- 
tion then, and what to do I did not know. I went 
down to tell Mr. Brougham and Mr. Walcot, who 
dressed in the same room. I said: "Gentlemen, 




CHARLES WALCOT. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 149 

\vc are in a 'fix.' Miss Hodson has cut and run 
with Mr. Lyster and his company. All gone — 
I don't know where, except that I heard some 
talk and gossip of her ultimate intention of visit- 
ing California." John Brougham stood speech- 
less, holding the hare's foot with which he was 
coloring his face. Walcot turned round and 
gasped, "For Heaven's sake, what are we going 
to do ? " "I don't know, but I '11 tell you what : 
if you are game we will play the piece without 
her." " Bless me," said Brougham, "play 'Po- 
cahontas' without Pocahontas?" "Yes; you will 
have to improvise. Get ready now and I will 
take care of the audience." 

I went on to the stage and said : " I am very 
sorry to appear, ladies and gentlemen, in the char- 
acter of an apologist. You have seen a good deal 
of me to-night in the first play, and I only wish that 
the extra sight you have of me could be accompa- 
nied by a more agreeable result; but I am obliged 
to tell you that we have no Pocahontas. Of course, 
under these circumstances we can but do what 
we should do; and to those who are not satisfied 
with this fact, and are not content to take what 



i5o 



Memories of Fifty Years. 




we can give them, we will return the money." 
Walcot, who was standing at the side, called out 
like a prompter: "Half the money, dear boy; 
half the money ; they have had 
half the show." But I paid no 
attention to him and continued: 
"We can give you a charming 
novelty instead." Some of the 
people who were preparing to 
leave sat down again and all were 
quiet, wondering what was com- 
ing. " We will give you the play 
of 'Pocahontas' without Pocahontas'' There was 
a shout directly. I said: "Therefore, as far as 
giving you ' Pocahontas ' goes, there will be no 
disappointment." The result was one of the 
greatest sprees ever seen upon the stage. Those 
two men were so clever that they absolutely im- 
provised all that was required in verse, and the 
burlesque never went better — perhaps from that 
very fact. Mary Gannon played the part of 
Pocahontas the next night. r 

It seemed decreed that when left to take care 
of the theatre during my father's absence I should 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



i s i 



meet the sort of things I encountered with Miss 
Hodson. My father went to Boston to play a 
star engagement one winter and left me in charge 
of the theatre. Sheridan's "Rivals" was run- 
ning. Brougham was the Sir Lucius, Blake the 
Sir Anthony Absolute, I was the Captain Abso- 
lute and Miss Laura Keene was Lydia Languish. 
A short time before the curtain was to rise on a 
certain evening the prompter came to me in a 
great state of mind and said : "Miss Keene has 
not arrived." (This, by the way, was previous 
to Miss Hodson's flight.) I sent to her house to 
know if she was ill, and 
found she had gone off to 
Baltimore with a man named 
Lutz. This person, it is said, 
had induced a lot of wealthy 
men to take a theatre and 
fit it up for him, on condi- 
tion that he engaged Miss 
Keene, and this he did. 
Before I had time to tell the audience about 
the difficulty a Mr. Meyers, who kept what 
was known as Meyers's Mourning Store, on 




'imm- 



LAURA KEENE. 



S2 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



Broadway, very near the theatre, and who 
was a great friend of Miss Keeile's (he and his 
daughters), sent word to say that he wished to 
see me at once. Although I was very busy I 
consented, because I fancied that he was privy 
to this whole affair, and thought perhaps he 
might have some reason to give or some expla- 
nation to make. He came rushing in and said, 
"What are you going to do?" I told him I 
was going on the stage to tell the people that 
Miss Keene had left. He replied, "I am going 
out in front as Miss Keene's friend to hear what 
you have to say." I went on and told the exact 
truth. I said: "I am very sorry to have to ask 
your indulgence for the lady who 
is going, on a very short notice, to 
undertake the part of Lydia Lan- 
guish. She may, possibly, have to 
read it." There was a great mur- 
mur, " Miss Keene ! Miss Keene ! " 
"If you will give me your patience 
for a few moments I will explain." 
" Miss Keene has left the theatre 
and left the city. I do not know anything 




MRS. F. B. CONWAY. 

I continued 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



about where she has gone, nor on what principle 
she has disappointed you to-night. I only tell 
you she has left the theater." The apology was 
accepted, the comedy was produced, and Mrs. 
Conway went through with flying colors as 
Lydia. Miss Keene subsequently wrote a letter 
to the papers in which she said she had gone 
to Baltimore because she had a 
brother who was very ill there. 
Miss Keene's place as leading 
lady was filled by Mrs. Hoey, 
who had retired from the stage 
upon her marriage to Mr. John 
Hoey, in 1851. As Mrs. Russell 
she had been a member of Bur- 
ton's Company for a number of years, and was 
a great favorite. Not long after Miss Keene's 
departure I went one New Year's day to call 
on Mrs. Hoey and her husband. She said to me, 
"I want to speak to you," took me to the win- 
dow, and, after looking at me a moment, added : 
" I am going back on the stage." " What ! does 
John not object?" She replied: "He only 
makes the condition, that if I go on the stage 




MRS. HOEY. 



i 54 Memories of Fifty Years. 

again it is to be at Mr. Wallack's theatre, and 
nowhere else." I immediately caught on to this, 
because Miss Keene's going away had left a gap 
which was very difficult to fill, and a leading lady 
is never easy to find. When I went home I told 
my father of this, and he asked: " But who is 
this Mrs. Russell ? " " Mrs. Russell is the best 
lady you can possibly get. She has been off 
the stage two or three years, but she was a 
very charming person and is exceedingly and 
justly popular, which, after all, is the great 
thing." 

So I introduced Mrs. Russell, or Mrs. Hoey, 
to my father, and the result was that he engaged 
her, and she made her reappearance in Sheridan 
Knowles's " Love Chase." I played Wildrake, 
and she Constance. I have seen stage fright 
very often, but I never shall forget the fright she 
was in that night. It would have been a very 
mortifying thing if she had made a failure then, 
and she was naturally very nervous, but she soon 
overcame it and was the enormous favorite she 
had been before. That is the history of her 
coming back. Burton was very angry that she 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



*55 




did not return to him, but Wallack's Theatre 
had become the fashionable place of amusement 
and everything was going up-town. Wallack's 
was almost a mile above Burton's 
Chambers Street house, and that was 
decidedly in its favor. Then we went 
at the comedies again, and Mrs. 
Hoey very soon came to the front 
and got her old place, and even a 
higher one. In fact, on or off the 
stage, no lady had ever been more Madeline henriques. 
deservedly popular than 
Mrs. John Hoey. When 
she finally retired little Miss 
Henriques appeared. She 
was also an immense fa- 
vorite. 

After the opening of Wal- 
lack's Theatre Burton in- 
troduced two admirable ar- 
tists to this country, Charles 
Fisher and Lysander Thompson, who first ap- 
peared on the same night and in the same piece, 
"The School of Reform," in Chambers Street, 




CHARLES FISHER. 



i 5 6 



Memories of Fifty Years. 




in 1852. Burton had a profound knowledge of 
men and of their capabilities, and very quickly 
learned where to place the 
members of his company to 
the best advantage for him 
and for themselves ; so much 
so that when he brought out 
that clever comedy, "Masks 
and Faces, "by Charles Reade, 
he played Triplet himself, but 
soon resigned it to Fisher, 
who made a great deal more 
of it. I have never seen any- 
body who could ever approach 
Fisher as Triplet; the whole per- 
formance was a gentle, charming, 
beautiful thing. When Fisher 
and Thompson left Burton, natu- 
rally they drifted to the new 
house, which absorbed all the 
stock talent in the country at that 
time, including Mrs. Vernon, Mr. 
and Mrs. Boucicault, John Dyott, 
Wm. Reynolds, J. H. Stoddart, Humphrey 
Bland, George Holland, Sothern, Henry and 



MRS. BOUCICAULT. 




WILLIAM J. REYNOLDS. 




JOSEPH JEFFERSON. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



*59 



Thomas Placide, besides those I have mentioned 
before. 

Mr. Bancroft Davis, an old friend of my 
father's, came to him one day at the Broome 
Street house with a play which Mr. Tom Taylor 
of London, who knew nothing of American 
theatres or American dra- 
matic possibilities, had sent 
out to this country for a mar- 
ket. Mr. Davis wished to have 
it produced at our house. I 
read the manuscript, was 
struck with its title, " Our 
American Cousin," but saw 
that it contained no part 
which could compare with 
the titular one — created by 
Mr. Taylor no doubt with 
an idea of pleasing theatre-goers on our side 
of the Atlantic as well as his. I told Mr. 
Davis that it was hardly suited to our require- 
ments; that it wanted a great Yankee character- 
actor ; that Mr. Joseph Jefferson, then a stock- 
actor in Miss Laura Keene's company, was the 




TOM TAYLOR. 



i6o 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



very man for it, and advised its presentation to 
her. Mr. Davis replied: "At any rate I have 
done what my friend Mr. Taylor Avished: I 
have given you the first choice." I said: "I 
think it is only right to tell you that if the 
play is to make a success at all, Jefferson is 
the man to make it:" 

He took the play to Miss 
Keene, who read it. She did 
not see any great elements 
of popularity in it, but she 
thought that it might do to 
fill a gap some time, and she 
pigeon-holed it. She was just 
then busy getting up a Shak- 
sperian revival, " Midsummer 
She had 




C. W. COULDOCK. 



Night's Dream. 



Mr. Blake with her and Mr. Jefferson, as well as 
Mr. Sothern, who was engaged to play such 
parts as I was playing at the other house. She 
was taking great pains with the " Midsummer 
Night's Dream," in which these people were all 
to appear; but it so happened that her scene- 
painters and her mechanics disappointed her in 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



61 




regard to the time in which she could produce 
it, and she found that this would delay her quite 
two weeks. Then she be- 
thought her of " Our Ameri- 
can Cousin," and she cast Mr. 
Blake for Binney the Butler, 
Mr. Couldock for Abel Murcot, 
Sara Stevens for Mary Mere- 
dith, Mr. Sothern for Lord 
Dundreary, with Mr. Jeffer- 
son, of course, for Asa Tren- 
chard. Blake positively re- 
fused the part of Binney, which 

was played by Charles Peters. 
Sothern, on looking over Lord 
Dundreary , found it was a part 
of forty or fifty lines, a sort of 
second old man; at least that 
was the view he took of it, and 
he went to Miss Keene, laid it 
upon her desk, and told her 
that he absolutely declined to 
play it. " You engaged me for 
Mr. Lester Wallack's parts, and I cannot possibly 
consent to undertake a thing of this sort." Miss 



SARA STEVENS. 




CHARLES PETERS. 



1 62 Memories of Fifty Years. 

Keene did not know what to do. She thought 
the play was a weak one and she wanted all her 
best talent in it, though Sothern was not consid- 
ered a great man then. At last she appealed 
to his generosity and asked him to do this 
thing as a mere matter of loyalty to her. At 
last he said: "Well, Miss Keene, I have read 
the part very carefully, and if you will let me 
'gag' it and do what I please with it I will un- 
dertake it, though it is terribly bad." Miss Keene 
said, "Do anything you like with it, only play 
it," and then Sothern set about to think how he 
should dress it. That was a time when the long 
frock-coat was in fashion — a coat that came 
down almost to the heels and was made like 
what is now called an Albert coat — a coat 
that " Punch " took hold of and caricatured 
unmercifully. It happened that Brougham 
had borrowed from me the coat in which I 
had played a part called The Debilitated Cous- 
in in " Bleak House," and with true Irish 
liberality and without thought that it was 
the property of somebody else, he generously 
lent it to Sothern; and that was the garment 




E. A. SOTHERN. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 165 

in which Sothern first appeared as Lord Dun- 
dreary. 

Jefferson was the star, but as the play went on, 
week after week, Asa TrencJiard became common- 
place, and up came Lord Dundreary. Sothern 
added every night new " gags," he introduced the 
reading of brother Sam's letter, etc., until at last 
nothing else was talked of but Lord Dundreary. 
After Sothern had worn it pretty well out here he 
went to London. On the first night " Our Ameri- 
can Cousin" made such a dead fiasco at the Hay- 
market that Buckstone put up a notice in the 
green-room, "Next Thursday: 'She Stoops to 
Conquer.' " Charles Mathews, who was in front, 
went behind and said: "Buckstone, you push 
this piece." "But it is an offense to all the 
swells. " " Don't you believe it," replied Mathews ; 
"you push it and it will please them more than 
anybody else." Buckstone was induced to give 
it further trial, and the consequence was four 
hundred consecutive nights. Sothern told me 
that Buckstone cleared thirty thousand pounds 
by it. 



CHAPTER VII. 

I HAVE frequently been asked, both by inter- 
viewing people and by my friends, what my 
method of study is, almost every actor having a 
method ; and apropos of this there comes in an 
anecdote about Macready. He always objected 
to a redundancy of gesture, and once said to my 
father : " My dear Wallack, you are naturally 
graceful ; I am not. I know that in gesture I do 
not excel, and facial expression is what I prin- 
cipally depend upon. In fact I absolutely make 
Mrs. Macready tie my hands behind my back, 
and I practice before a large glass and watch the 
face." My father replied: "Well, Macready, I 
suppose that is all very good, but did you ever 
try it with your legs tied ? " 

But in answer to this question, which has been 
so often asked concerning my method of study, 

166 



Memories of Fifty Years. 167 

I may say that the first thing is to get a thor- 
ough knowledge of the play. At first I gener- 
ally studied the other parts even a little more 
than I thought of my own ; and when I came to 
my own I studied it scene by scene to get the 
words perfect. I did not think so much of what 
I was going to do with them until I got them so 
correctly that I could play with them in two or 
three different ways. Having one scene in my 
head I would go to the next, there being perhaps 
two or three scenes in one act. I would then go 
to work to perfect the first act as a whole. My 
first thought was to try to get the author's mean- 
ing ; to pay that respect which was his due by 
carefully following his text. Having done that, I 
worked on the different modes of expressing the 
author, picked what I thought was best, etc., and 
then put that act by. Suppose we had four acts, 
for instance, I would then study the second after 
the same fashion, and so on, using the same 
method all through with the four. I studied 
alone of course at first, but when I thought my- 
self sufficiently au fait I would get Mrs. Wallack, 
or one of my sons, to hear me in the part, and 



1 68 Memories of Fifty Years. 

then play it in two or three different ways in 
order to see how it affected them. While I was 
perfect in the room, the moment I got upon the 
stage at rehearsal the positions, uses of furni- 
ture, etc., interrupted all this. The use of these 
had all' to be blended properly with what I had 
done before. With a chair here and a table there, 
and the footlights here and the audience there, 
I had to study how all this could be worked in so 
as to make as perfect an ensemble as possible. 

I do not know the systems of other artists, but 
that was mine. Of course, after all this prepara- 
tion, when I came before the audience things 
would suggest themselves to me in the very 
midst of what I was doing, — " inspirations," if I 
may use so fine a word ; and I then sometimes 
got effects I did not dream of when studying, 
because I was playing before the audience and 
found out their mood. I do not think I ever 
sacrificed my study very much to the caprice of 
my audience. I have done it at times, perhaps, 
and to a certain extent in cases where I could 
execute just as gracefully, though not quite so 
correctly, and with equally telling effect. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 169 

Ease of study depends a great deal upon 
whether the author is a practical playwright. 
The motives of the old writers were so clear and 
their mode of illustrating their meaning so thor- 
ough that they were a great deal easier, at least 
to me, than the more modern dramatists. There 
is a sort of power about them which seems to com- 
municate itself. Personally, I think that Shak- 
spere is almost the easiest study; perhaps because 
of my being accustomed as aboy to see Shakspere's 
plays ; but he always impresses himself upon one 
as he is read, and we are more likely to get 
greater ease of words. I always found Sheridan 
a very easy study ; but I have had more difficulty, 
curious to say (and I think many of my profes- 
sion, at least the best of them, will bear me out 
in this), in studying the extremely modern school 
of writers than I ever had with the older ones. 
In speaking Tom Robertson's lines, for instance, 
one is talking " every-day talk." It looks very 
easy, but it is most difficult, for if you are illus- 
trating Sheridan or Shakspere you are speaking 
in a language that is new to you ; which on that 
account impresses you all the more ; whereas if 



7 o 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



you have a speech from Tom Robertson or Bou- 
cicault you can give it just as well in two or 
three different ways. You cannot in Shakspere 
find any words to improve the text, but if you 
say : " How do you do this morning ? " or " How 
are you this morning ? " one is just as good as the 
other; and yet, as a rule, to give the author's 
text is usually both proper and 
just. 

As to my study, of course it 
depended upon how often I had 
seen a part and how familiar I 
was with the piece. Don Felix, 
for instance, I had seen my 
father play frequently, and natu- 
rally it was comparatively easy 
with me. But take Don Ccesar 
de Bazan. Some time after my 
father's death I was requested to play Don Ccesar, 
a character he had made peculiarly his own, and 
of which he was the original in the English lan- 
guage. It was fourteen or fifteen years since I 
had played it, and I said to Mrs. Wallack: "Be- 
fore I look at this part again I want you to see 




TOM ROBERTSON. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 171 

if I remember anything of it." I not only rec- 
ollected the words, but I did not miss a syllable. 
She laid down the book in perfect astonishment. 
It seemed to come upon me directly, as though 
I had performed it the night before. This 
gift of memory has been always of inestimable 
service to me. 

With regard to self-consciousness on the stage, 
I have often noticed that actors are blamed for 
this as a fault; and when I happened to see a 
criticism upon myself which seemed based on 
anything like reason, and was written by any- 
body worth listening to, or worth reading, or 
worth thinking of over again, I would do a little 
self-questioning upon the subject, and ask myself 
exactly what it meant, and how I should treat, 
in my own mind, the argument of the writer. I 
found, particularly in comedy, that if an actor 
is not self-conscious it is simply because he has 
not studied his effects. For instance, if I am 
preparing to play a comic part I calculate neces- 
sarily where I think the points will tell, or, to 
use a common phrase, where "the laugh will 
come in," as it must come in if one is going to 



172 Memories of Fifty Years. 

be comic. And in doing that, of course there 
must be self-consciousness. I have studied a 
line, for example, which I felt would " go with 
a roar," and if the laughter came, there was the 
self-consciousness. I was perfectly conscious 
that I had been very funny. I had studied to 
be so, and I was so. There never was, in my 
opinion, a raconteur, from Charles Lamb or Theo- 
dore Hook down to Gilbert a Becket, or H. J. 
Byron, or Thackeray, or Dickens, or any of these 
men who spoke and told anecdotes at a dinner- 
table — there never was one of them that was 
not conscious that he was going to be funny. 
He may have made a mistake and missed it 
sometimes ; but as a rule he enjoyed the story 
with the audience. Tragedy and comedy are 
very different. If a man is playing a serious 
part he is wrapped up in it, to the utter exclu- 
sion of the audience ; but the moment the come- 
dian has uttered his first line, and the laugh 
comes, there is a sort of en rapport between 
himself and the audience, and the thing must 
go. It is a matter which Charles Mathews and 
I very often made the subject of our conversa- 



Memories of Fifty Years. 173 

tions, of which we had a great many, and he 
thoroughly agreed with me. I said to him : 
" Now, Charles, suppose yourself in one of those 
great parts in which no one can approach you, 
do you mean to say you play as well with a dull 
audience as with a bright one?" ''No," he 
replied ; " it is out of the question to play if 
the audience don't go with you. You cannot 
play a part with spirit; and for me it is simply 
impossible." 

A comedian can never forget his audience as 
much as a tragedian can. I am giving merely 
the experience of one comedian, but I know per- 
fectly well it is the feeling of many. I know that 
John Gilbert would say the same and that Blake 
felt the same. If I am studying in my room a 
serious part I become very intense, and do not 
think of the applause ; but if I am studying a 
comic part I want to feel the fun myself; then I 
feel sure of my audience. In fact, to sum the 
matter up, the actor wants the audience in comedy 
a great deal more than in a tragic part. 

He must never, however, appear to be con- 
scious of his clothes. Take a man like Mon- 



174 Memories of Fifty Years. 

tague, for instance. He was charming in trouser 
and coat and " cigarette parts," and wore the dress 
of our day with the ease of a thorough gentle- 
man ; but put him in costume and he was gone, 
miserably conscious that he was awkward and 
out of place. Now, Mr. Bellew, on the other 
hand, is better in doublet and hose. His ap- 
pearance is romantic, he is natu- 
rally graceful, and the costume 
of other days suits him admi- 
rably. Apropos of this, I must 
tell you of the elder William Far- 
ren, who was the greatest old man 
comedian I ever saw. When Bou- 
cicault wrote " London Assur- 
h. j. montague. ance " his audiences had never 

seen Mr. Farren in anything but knee-breech- 
es, silk stockings, diamond-buckled shoes and 
so on. His friends thought he could never 
play Sir Har court Courtly ; but he went to 
Stultz, the great tailor then, — the Poole of the 
day, — and ordered the most correct style of 
modern costume. His dressing was absolutely 
perfect, and his manner was as perfect as his 




Memories of Fifty Years. 175 

dress. One would suppose that he had never 
worn anything but frock-coat and trousers or an 
evening dress all his professional life. Sir Har- 
court should be made up exactly as a young 
man. Later actors have made it too evident 
to the audience that they wear a great bushy 
wig. Farren was faultless in the part, the veri- 
table elderly young man of real life, the man 
who had left off taking snuff because it was not 
the thing to do at all — the man to be seen daily 
even yet in White's and at the club windows. 

Talking of " London Assurance," I remember 
standing behind the scenes at the Haymarket 
one night during the run of Bulwer's " Money," 
then at the very zenith of its first and great suc- 
cess, when some one came hurrying in and an- 
nounced, " An enormous hit at Covent Garden; 
the third act is over and it is tremendous. If the 
other two acts go in the same way it is an im- 
mense go." This was "London Assurance." I 
saw it the second night. It was really the first 
time that the perfection of the modern boxed-in 
scenery was displayed to the public. It was most 
beautifully done ; I can see the whole thing now 



176 Memories of Fifty Years. 



the scenes and everything. It was, as I have said, 
something quite novel; and was of course a great 
success. When the curtain went down on the first 
act, the first night, there was a dead silence. It 
is a very ineffective ending and the scene was 
simply an anteroom in which there was no 
chance for very great display ; but when the cur- 
tain rose on the second act, the outside of " Oak 
Hall," there was an enormous amount of ap- 
plause ; and that act went with the most perfect 
"snap." The audience was in good humor from 
the moment of the entrance of that most per- 
fect actress, Mrs. Nisbett, as Lady Gay, for whom 
Boucicault wrote the part. He describes her as 
the seventh daughter of an earl, the baby of the 
family, married to a man considerably older than 
herself. Mrs. Nisbett's tall, lovely figure, her baby 
face, her silvery laugh, carried the whole house ; 
while the contrast with Keely, who was the 
original Dolly, was delicious. He was a country 
squire of about forty years of age, dressed to per- 
fection in his top-boots, etc. The fault of all 
later Dollys is that they are made to look and act 
too young. The first cast of "London Assur- 



Memories of Fifty Years. 177 

ance " was a wonderful one throughout, even to 
the actor who played Cool, Mr. Brindal; and to the 
afterwards celebrated Alfred Wigan, who played 
Solomon Isaacs, and had about four words to say. 
That ensemble was one of the most perfect I ever 
saw. It had for that time a very great run, and 
it built up the declining fortunes of Covent 
Garden. 

As to what Brougham had to do with the play, 
I have heard Charles Mathews on the point, I 
have heard Boucicault on the point, and I have 
heard John Brougham himself on the point. 
There is very little doubt that Brougham first 
suggested the idea ; and there is no doubt that he 
intended the part of Dazzle for himself. Charles 
Mathews was the original Dazzle. So far as I 
know, Mr. Brougham, for a certain sum of money, 
conceded to Mr. Boucicault his entire rights in 
the comedy. John was far less officious in the 
matter than his friends were. They invented all 
sorts of tales ; but there is no question that the 
success of the whole thing was due to Mr. Bouci- 
cault, to his tact and cleverness and to the brill- 
iancy of his dialogue. 



178 Memories of Fifty Years. 

The speech we technically call " the tag " of 
the play was written for Max Harkaway , and of 
course was consistent with the character of the 
honest old squire, but Farren insisted upon 
speaking it Here is this old man, this Sir 
Harcourt Courtly, who has been trying all 
the time to impress upon everybody what a 
virtuous thing vice is, who has been plotting to 
run away with his friend's wife, who has all 
through been showing that he is a man totally 
without principle, making this very moral speech 
at the end. They represented to him that it was 
inconsistent, but he insisted upon it. Bouci- 
cault, who was a young man just rising, felt 
flattered as a young author to have all these 
great people acting his play, and was not in a 
position to do what he would certainly do now,— 
say : " I won't have it " ; and consequently had 
to give in to Farren. 

On one occasion Drury Lane was in a very 
bad way, and when they were making engage- 
ments for the next season Farren was asked if 
he would not, in consideration of the poor busi- 
ness, come down a little in his salary. He said: 



Memories of Fifty Years, 



179 



" Certainly not, sirs. Mr. Jones and all these 
people can be replaced ; there are others in the 
market ; but suppose for a moment, if you please, 
the market to be a fish market, that you must 
have a cock-salmon, and that there is but one 
cock-salmon to be had. You will have to pay 
for the cock-salmon. Now, gentlemen, in this 
market I am the cock-salmon ! " 

Therefore Mr. Farren, who really 
was unrivalled at that time as the 
leading comic old man actor of cer- 
tain parts that required certain 
gifts, certain manner, etc., carried 
his point. There was no appeal 
from him at all ; if they wanted to 
keep him they had to give him 
what money he asked, and also let him do what 
he liked with the parts he acted. He was known 
as the " Cock-salmon " as long as he lived. 

I remember a curious contretemps of Farren and 
Mrs. Glover, the greatest actress of "old women" 
in her day, or perhaps in any day. I was a mem- 
ber of the Haymarket Company, and we were 
playing the inevitable " School for Scandal," 




WILLIAM FARREN. 



180 Memories of Fifty Years. 

which came along at some time in almost every 
season. Mrs. Nisbett (Lady Boothby), one of the 
most glorious actresses that ever walked upon 
the stage, was Lady Teazle, Mr. Hudson Charles 
Surface, Stewart Joseph, I Sir Benjamin Back- 
bite, Mrs. Glover Mrs. Candour, and Farren of 
course a perfect Sir Peter. Imagine if you can 
the classic Haymarket Theatre in the classic 
" School for Scandal," with the classic Mr, Farren 
and the classic Mrs. Glover coming in the scandal 
scene to what is called " a dead stick." But oh ! 
when the act was over and the curtain went down ! 
A private little scene between the " classics " then 
was something to be remembered. " A nice 
mess you 've made of it, Glover ! " said Farren. 
" The fault was entirely yours ! " replied Glover. 
" We 've played these parts together about five 
hundred times ! " said Farren. "Then it's high 
time you remembered the text," said Glover. It 
ended with Farren swearing devoutly, and with 
the lady taking refuge in the traditional hysterics, 
Mrs. Nisbett saying to me, with a nudge of the 
elbow : " Look at the old fogies. They are both 
in the wrong ! " 




JOHN GILBERT. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 183 

I have played in " The School for Scandal " in I 
don't know how many British cities, — Edinburgh, 
Southampton, Dublin, Manchester and Lon- 
don, — and each has claimed in some mysterious 
manner to possess either the original manuscript 
or an authorized copy, although the authority 
which authorized it was never very clear to the 
unbiased mind. Calcraft always swore that the 
Theatre Royal, Dublin, had it in Sheridan's own 
handwriting, the Bath Theatre made the same 
claim, while the Haymarket utterly ignored the 
claims of either of them. This same scandal 
scene has been the subject of unending dispute 
between the prompters and the players, even 
down to John Gilbert's day. I have heard the 
prompter say: "Mr. Gilbert, I beg your pardon, 
you should come on the right!" "No, sir; I 
come on the left ! " " Mr. Gilbert, the last time 
you came on the left ! " " Great Heavens ! Sir, 
I 've played the part a thousand times and I think 
I ought to know ! " The prompter's lot is not a 
happy one. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Some of the experiences in my profession are 
very amusing. There are many instances of 
misapplication of a word or of a too quick in- 
clination to carry a joke or a telling line to the 
audience. There was an old actor named Harry 
Hunt. He was a bass singer and was the hus- 
band of the present Mrs. John Drew. Hunt 
was playing with us at the Broadway Theatre 
when I first came here. The play was " Money." 
George VandenhofT played Evelyn and I Sir 
Frederick Blount. In the celebrated gambling 
scene there is a character called the Old Mem- 
ber, who has nothing to do but to call continually 
for the snuff-box. When Sir Edward Buhver 
wrote that play I often thought how curious it 
was that in a first-class club there should be 
only one snuff-box. The characters, as they 
got excited, kept taking the snuff-box off the 
table. The Old Member is reading the paper all 
184 



Memories of Fifty Years. 185 

the time. Presently he looks for the snufT-box, 
and it is gone. He calls out to the waiter: 
"Waiter, the snuff-box!" and the servant goes 
to Blount, or whoever has taken it, and puts it 
back on the table. Hunt never was perfect in 
the words of anything he played ; but on this 
occasion he had before him, inside the news- 
paper, all the cues and his own part ; so he had 
nothing to do but read it, and he was determined 
to be right for once. When the scene is culmi- 
nating, in the midst of all the confusion and the 
roar that is caused by certain necessities of the 
play, the last thing that is heard is this Old Mem- 
ber shouting: "Waiter, the snuff-box!" There 
was a momentary pause, when Hunt hallooed 
out: "Waiter, the buff-snox!" Of course, the 
scene closed with more laughter than ever before. 
Another very curious thing of that sort oc- 
curred to me when I was playing Charles Stir- 
face at Wallack's Theatre. An actor named 
H. B. Phillips was Crabtree, and in the scene 
in which Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite 
come on with the mass of scandal and stuff and a 
lot of information with regard to what has pre- 



1 86 Memories of Fifty Years. 

viously occurred in the four acts, they proceed 
to say, " Have you heard the news?" and so on. 
They are describing this thing, and, of course, 
telling all sorts of stories that are not a bit 
true ; and Sir Benjamin Backbite, who is the first 
to enter, has to say, "Then Charles and Sir 
Peter began to fight with swords," and Crabtree 
rushes on, " Pistols, nephew ; pistols, nephew," 
all of which is, of course, false. Sir Benjamin 
says: "Oh, no, no, no, no; then Sir Peter was 
wounded. I know it was swords, because he 
was wounded with a thrust in the seconded 
"No, no, no, no," the other says; "a bullet in 
the thorax, a bullet in the thorax," and he was 
so anxious that he said, " No, no, no, no; a thul- 
let in the borax ! " Very curious to say, the 
audience hardly noticed this then, and would 
not have noticed it at all but for John Brougham, 
who never spared anybody (he was playing Sir 
Oliver Surface), and who said directly : " What 
the devil is his borax ? " 

I told this to an actor named John Sloane, 
who, by the bye, was the original Cassidy in 
"Jessie Brown," and who played Irishman as 



Memories of Fifty Years. 187 



well as other things. John laughed very much 
at this. Well, when I went to fulfil the first star 
engagement I ever played, — it was at Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, long before the war, of 
course, — I was Sir Charles Surface, and Sloane, 
who was playing Crabtree, actually thought this 
was a magnificent thing to do, and when he came 
on he said, "A thullet in his 
borax." He had told the story 
to a lot of people in Charleston, 
and they thought it a capital 
joke. He evidently considered it 
a legitimate " gag," if any gag 
can be considered legitimate. 

During my long career I have 
naturally been brought into con- 
tact with some of the most in- SAMUEL LOVER - 

teresting men of my own profession and of the 
world at large. I saw a great deal, for instance, 
of Samuel Lover when he was in America in 
1848. He was advertised to appear at the 
Broadway Theatre, and when he attempted to 
play in his own piece, " The White Horse of the 
Peppers," he was certainly the most frightfully 




1 88 Memories of Fifty Years. 

nervous man I ever saw in my life. There was 
a great house because of the natural curiosity to 
see the poet in his own play. He was a very 
intimate friend of my father's. I stood in the 
wings when he came down as Gerald Pepper. 
The costume was the military dress of a cavalier 
of the time of James II., the scene of the play 
being the Revolution, — William III. coming 
over and turning James II. out of the country, — 
and Gerald Pepper was one of the Irish who re- 
mained faithful to the Stuart king. His feathers 
on this occasion were stuck in the back of his 
hat, his sword-belt was over the wrong shoulder, 
one of his boots was pulled up over his knee and 
the other was down over his foot. He looked as 
if somebody had pitchforked his clothes on to 
him, and he was trembling like a leaf. I in- 
duced him to put a little more color in his face, 
took his hat off and adjusted the feathers prop- 
erly, put his sword on as it ought to go, fixed 
his boots right, and literally pushed him on to 
the stage. Of course there is no harm now in 
saying that it was one of the worst amateur 
performances I ever saw in my life, and I don't 




TYRONE POWER. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 191 

think Lover ever acted after that uncomfortable 
night. 

Maurice Power, a son of Tyrone Power, played 
an engagement in New York at about the same 
time. Tyrone Power was perhaps the greatest 
delineator of Irish character of the middle and 
peasant class that has ever been seen. His 
melancholy death in the lost steamer " Presi- 
dent" will be well remembered by all who take 
an interest in theatrical affairs. A son of the 
Duke of Richmond, who had delayed his return 
to England for the sake of accompanying Power 
in the same vessel, was also lost, and I can well 
remember the many applications to my father, 
who it was well known had made the voyage to 
America and back so very often, for his opinion 
upon their chances of escape. It was his pain- 
ful duty at last to convey to Mrs. Power the 
melancholy news that all hope was lost. It was 
the more touching perhaps from the fact that 
when he entered the house on his sad mission he 
was confronted by all the little gifts that the chil- 
dren had prepared as surprises for their father 
when he should arrive. 



192 Memories of Fifty Years. 

The sympathy and good feeling that was 
shown afterwards in England was as general as 
it was unusual ; and the thoughtful kindness of 
Lord Melbourne, who was then Prime Minister, 
was exhibited in a very marked manner. Almost 
his last act before he resigned the premiership 
was the gift to Power's eldest son, William 
Tyrone Power, of a commission in the Army 
Commissariat Department.. I remember very 
well the glee with which young William Power 
came to announce to our family the gratifying 
news. He was well versed in languages, speak- 
ing German, Italian and French ; the conse- 
quence was that his promotion was unusually 
rapid. He served all through the Crimean war, 
and became finally Sir William Tyrone Power, 
and absolute chief of the English Commissariat 
Department. It is not often that patronage is 
so wisely and successfully bestowed. 

A very different man from Power was Mr. 
GofTe, "the man-monkey," a capital performer 
in his own way, although naturally very low in 
the professional scale. Frederick Conway, who 
always stood upon his dignity as the representa- 



Memories of Fifty Years. 



193 



tive of high and noble parts, toged Romans and 
the like, was getting on famously in this country 
when he chanced to meet one night in a theat- 
rical bar-room GofTe, with whom in his more 
humble days and in the old country he had had 
intimate social and professional relations, play- 
ing with him in some of the smaller provincial 
towns, and upon pretty even 
terms. GofTe was delighted to 
meet his old companion, and ad- 
dressed him thus : " Well, now, is 
it ? yes, it is Convay ! Why, Con- 
vay, old man, how are ye?" " I 
beg your pardon, sir, I do not 
recognize you," said Conway. 
" Oh, come, I say now, none of 
that, that won't do, let 's take a 
glass together," said GofTe. There were some very 
swell members of the profession around them, 
and Conway felt exceedingly uncomfortable, but 
he replied : " I will certainly imbibe with you, 
sir; I have no objection." "I heard you were 
in America, but I did n't think I 'd meet ye. 
Well, now we are together here, Mr. Convay, 




F. B. CONWAY. 



194 Memories of Fifty Years. 

can't we make something hup ? " "I do not 
understand, sir," said Conway. " I have, at 
your request, just taken something down, and I 
think that is all that is necessary between us." 
"No, you don't see what I mean," persisted 
Goffe ; " there 's money for both of us. Suppose 
we 'ave a benefit together. You do a Roman 
part. I '11 do my scene as the hape between the 
hacts, and we '11 draw a lot of money." At last 
Conway lost all patience, and retorted : " Sir, I 
have endured the ups and downs of life in my 
time, I have met with various indignities, I have 
been appreciated and slighted, I can stand a 
great deal, but Cato and a ring-tailed monkey — 
never! " 

When I was in Edinburgh Hackett came there 
to star, but the people did not quite understand 
his style of humor. He was very celebrated as 
Nimrod Wildfire in a piece called " The Ken- 
tuckian," and I remember acting with him in 
English " dude " parts, of which I was then very 
fond. Hackett's great character was Fa/staff, or 
at least he thought it was. He used to bully 
the underlings at the theatre, although not in- 



Memories of Fifty Years. 195 

tentionally, for he was too good-hearted to do 
anything that was cruel or mean ; but his ideas of 
discipline were autocratic, and he was exceed- 
ingly unpopular there, and elsewhere, among the 
lower members of the companies. He was play- 
ing Falstaff in " Henry IV.," I remember ; 
Wyndham, afterwards a celebrated actor (not 
the Wyndham of the present day), played The 
Prince of Wales ; Edward Glover, a son of old 
Mrs. Glover, played Hotspur, and Davidge, I 
think, Bardolph. 

On this particular occasion, in one of his great 
scenes, Hackett found that his stomach began to 
collapse. He wore, as all the Falstaffs do, of 
course, an immense paunch, which in Hackett's 
case was made of a wind-bag. It was found 
that a stuffed "stomach" in hot weather was a 
terrific burden to an actor, and at last some cos- 
turner invented one which fitted the dress to 
perfection, but was filled with air. The wearer 
blew it up, screwed on the top, and then it was 
all right One of Hackett's enemies this even- 
ing had pricked a hole in his false abdomen, not 
large enough to make it collapse all at once, but 



196 Memories of Fifty Years. 



by degrees, and Hackett found at the end of one 
scene that he was not quite as stout as he was 
before, and said to his dressing- man : " This is 
not all right ; I feel a looseness ; see if this screw 
is not unfastened." Everything was apparently 
in order and he went on again. He continued 
to decrease in size till at last there came a rush 
of wind and the stomach disappeared altogether, 
the actor finishing the scene as best he could 
and the audience convulsed with laughter. 

Pat Hearn was at one time a very celebrated 
character in New York. He was a brother to 
Judge Hearn and was known to everybody. 
There was not a car-driver, nor a hack-driver, 
nor an omnibus-driver, nor any pedestrian that 
frequented Broadway who was not familiar with 
the face and figure of Pat Hearn. He was cele- 
brated not only on account of keeping the swell 
gambling house of New York, but he was also 
known from his peculiarity of costume. Hat on 
one side, necktie of satin, scarf-pin of the most 
flaming description, gloves of the brightest lemon- 
colored kid, and all that sort of thing. We were 
going to produce a piece which was written by a 



Memories of Fifty Years. 197 

son of Bishop Wainwright, Wadsworth Wain- 
wright, which was, I presume, the first positive 
society play that was ever brought out in New 
York, unless it might be Mrs. Mowatt's play of 
''Fashion." This, however, was a decided fail- 
ure. I played in it and my father directed the 
rehearsals. 

There was one scene in which I had to point 
out, to a country friend who came to visit New 
York, the various celebrities who passed. Here 
is so and so, etc. And now and then there 
was a little ripple of laughter as some one was 
recognized. Of course, I did not mention names. 
Presently I had to say, " Now, here is one with 
whom, perhaps, you may make acquaintance, 
although I would not advise you to be too 
closely intimate, because your pockets may suf- 
fer," and on came Sloane so perfectly dressed in 
imitation of Hearn, who was himself in the stalls, 
that the audience, one and all, recognized it di- 
rectly, and I do not remember in all my experi- 
ence ever hearing laughter continue such a great 
length of time as it did on that occasion. Sloane, 
being an Irishman himself, could imitate Hearn's 



198 Memories of Fifty Years. 

brogue, and he entered with that peculiar swag- 
ger which was so well known to all New Yorkers. 
Pat Hearn laughed as much as anybody, although 
he was indignant, not because he was represented 
on the stage, for he rather enjoyed the notoriety, 
but, as in the case of all men who are caricatured, 
because he thought Sloane was not a bit like 
him. He met John Brougham some days after, 
and John said: "Well, Pat, what did you think 
of that imitation Sloane gave?" "It wuz all 
very well and very legitimate, so far as it wint, 
but pfy the divil could n't he dress a little 
bit loike me? Who the divil iver saw me in 
such a get-up ? The waistcoat he wore ! If he 
wants a waistcoat I '11 buy him wan and sind him 
wan he can wear. I niver would father such a 
waistcoat as thot ! " "Then," said Brougham, 
"you refuse to recognize its Pat-Hernity ? " 

The Duke of Beaufort, who was the nephew of 
the Duke of Wellington, used to talk very freely 
to my father and to me. Of course everybody 
wanted to hear all that could be told about Wel- 
lington, what he did, and what he said. For 
instance, in speaking of " Up, Guards, and at 



Memories of Fifty Years. 199 

them," my father, turning to Beaufort, said : 

"Now, did your uncle say that " The 

Duke of Beaufort interrupted him : " My dear 
Wallack, when you want to mention my uncle 
say 'The Duke'; there is only one duke with 
us, ' The Duke ! ' I have heard the question 
asked, and 'The Duke's' reply: 'It is possible 
I might have said it, but I do not recollect it.' 
What he did do was to close up his glass and 
order the whole line to advance." Theodore 
Hook used to tell a very good anecdote of the 
Duke, who was rather fond of Hook, and who 
was showing him over Apsley House once, 
when he said : " Hook, I want you to come and 
look at this little bit of my camp life I still have 
about me," and he pointed out a little iron bed, 
in which, although he was then past seventy, he 
always slept; when Hook said : " I cannot con- 
ceive how you can sleep on that ; there is not 
room in it to turn round." " Of course not, sir ; 
why should I turn ? When a man turns round, 
it is time to turn out." 

He had the power of going to sleep at the 
most trying moments, the Duke of Beaufort used 



200 Memories of Fifty Years. 

to say, and with the utmost calmness and ease, and 
this is an anecdote he told my father : On one oc- 
casion they slept in a church in which there was 
nothing but a long table and some wooden chairs. 
The staff thought it necessary that he should lie 
down, and they put a saddle, with a blanket 
over it, on the table for his head, and then they 
put church candles all around it to keep the in- 
sects away. He threw himself on the table, 
folded his arms, and said : " Boys, take what rest 
you can; I am going to sleep," and was off in two 
minutes. About six o'clock, soon after day- 
break, some of his staff awoke and stretched 
themselves, and were about to call him, but 
he was away to the front, and had been gone 
an hour. The Duke of Wellington was exactly 
my father's height, five feet eight and a half 
inches in his stockings. He kept his figure till the 
last ; he never got fat. In their youth Bonaparte 
and he were both beautifully formed men, but 
Bonaparte afterwards became very stout. They 
were born the same year. He had a great com- 
pliment paid to him at his funeral. There was a 
deputation from every regiment in the British 



Memories of Fifty Years. 201 

army, — two or three privates, a sergeant and a 
couple of officers, — and from all the regiments of 
the Continent of which he was Honorary Colonel ; 
because he had been Generalissimo of the armies 
of Russia, Prussia, Hanover, France, England and 
Sweden. I suppose he was the only man of 
whom so much can be said. His watchword was 
Duty, and to do his duty was his only ambition. 

When he was put in command of a very unim- 
portant garrison town in England, just after one 
of his great victories, he said to the friends 
who sympathized with him : " I consider it my 
duty to accept any position in which I can be of 
service to my country ! " 

Here is an anecdote showing the coolness with 
which people in those days took certain matters 
and phases of society. This was about the time 
that Vestris lived with the Duke of Beaufort. One 
day my father was at Beaufort's place, and they 
went to the billiard-room in the afternoon to 
play. There were little tripods all round against 
the wall of the room, and on each one was placed 
a little dish covered with violets. My father stood 
talking with the Duchess, and said to her casu- 



202 Memories of Fifty Years. 

ally, "What a lovely perfume there is from these 
violets." The Duke interrupted : " My dear 
Wallack, do you know what it cost me for 
violets for a certain friend of ours one year? 
She would have them all over the house, and I 
paid seven hundred pounds for those flowers 
alone." My father flushed up and did not know 
what to say ; but the Duchess replied very coolly : 
" Oh, my dear Mr. Wallack, do not be dis- 
turbed ; the Duke must have his little amuse- 
ments." 

The visit of Sir Richard Sutton, in his yacht 
"The Galatea," to this country brought to my 
mind an anecdote of an ancestor of his, in which 
my father was, to a certain extent, concerned. 
I don't know whether the present Sir Richard 
Sutton is a son or grandson of the Sutton my 
father knew. That Sir Richard Sutton was, like 
his descendant, however, a great sportsman and 
a great master of hounds in his county. When 
my father was upset in a coach and broke his leg 
near New Brunswick, N. J., he was not able to 
go home to England for some time. But, at 
last, when he did reach London, he went to see 



Memories of Fifty Years. 203 

Sir Astley Cooper, a celebrated surgeon of that 
day, who had the leg broken again, it had been 
so badly set. It was a compound fracture, and 
became almost a hopeless case when my father 
heard of a young surgeon named Amesbury, 
who had already achieved some success, though 
he was as yet but little known to fame. He 
fitted a very peculiar and ingenious instrument 
on my father which held the limb in a certain 
position, and which, as the bones re-formed, 
had to be screwed up by degrees every day. 
This treatment at last put the patient firmly on 
his legs again. It so happened, I do not know 
how many months later, that Sir Richard Sut- 
ton, in hunting, had a bad fall and broke his leg. 
Of course, as he was a man of enormous wealth, 
the best surgeons were consulted, but they could 
not give him any hope of ever sitting in the sad- 
dle again. Some one who knew my father hap- 
pened to be stopping with Sir Richard at his 
country place, and he said: "Young James 
Wallack, of Drury Lane Theatre, the actor, 
once had a compound fracture of the limb, and, 
as far as I can tell, worse than yours ; he is all 



204 Memories of Fifty Years. 

right again and pursuing his profession, and you 
could hardly perceive that he had ever had any- 
thing the matter with his leg at all." Sir Rich- 
ard said : " For Heaven's sake, who did it ? " 
His friend replied that he did not know, but 
would advise him to write to Mr. Wallack him- 
self about it. Sir Richard said : " I do not know 
Mr. Wallack." "That does n't matter. If you 
will write to him I am sure he will take an in- 
terest in the case." So Sir Richard wrote and 
asked the particulars of Amesbury's treatment, 
and my father replied that he could himself 
recommend Amesbury heartily ; that the way 
he had cured him was marvellous, and that he 
was most grateful for his skill. Sir Richard 
Sutton sent for Amesbury, and what he had 
done for my father he did for him, so that in less 
than three months after he found Sir Richard 
Sutton in his bed he put him in the saddle again. 
Sir Richard wrote my father a letter of thanks, 
which was almost superfluous, because he had 
nothing to do with his own cure or Sir Richard's, 
except to recommend the surgeon. At all events 
Sir Richard sent my father a pair of pistols, which 



Memories of Fifty Years. 205 






I still possess. They are made of silver and steel, 
and were found by an ancestor of Sir Richard's 
on the field after the battle of Culloden, in which 
the Duke of Cumberland defeated the Pretender. 
They are beautiful specimens of the gunmaker's 
work of that day, and evidently had belonged 
to a Highland chief of rank. 

To return to my father: When he broke his 
leg he was playing a part called Captain Bertram, 
a naval officer who has been wounded and is 
confined entirely to his bed and his chair; and 
when he appeared again he began in this same 
part of Captain Bertram. After the end of this 
first piece, when his audience was satisfied that 
he would never walk well again, they expected 
he would play some drunken part, in which he 
would have to limp and stagger around ; but 
when they heard his voice and saw him rush on 
the stage, the same dashing-looking fellow he 
was before he was hurt, of course the effect was 
tremendous, for no one knew that he could walk 
at all. 

When Thackeray was here on his last visit I 
was presented to him, at the old theatre, at the 



206 Memories of Fifty Years. 

corner of Broome Street and Broadway. I 
thought him, with his great height, his spec- 
tacles, which gave him a very pedantic appear- 
ance, and his chin always carried in the air, the 
most pompous, supercilious person I had ever 
met ; but I lived to alter that opinion, and in a 
very short time. He saw the play, " A Cure for 
the Heartache," in which Blake and I played Old 
Rapid and Young Rapid. When the piece was 
over Mr. Blake and I went into the green-room 
and were introduced to Thackeray by my father, 
who knew him intimately in London. I remem- 
ber his saying: "I have seen to-night an illustra- 
tion of what I have preached over and over again, 
the endeavor of the artists to remember that they 
are presenting, not only in personal appearance 
but in manner, the picture of what is past and 
gone, of another era, of another age almost, cer- 
tainly of another generation. I wish to tell this 
to you two who have presented these characters 
so admirably. I shall go back to London and 
say : ' I have seen acting.' " 

Thackeray then lived with a very great and 
dear friend of mine and my father's, and they 



Memories of Fifty Years. 207 

had rooms together in Houston Street. I had a 
house next door but one to them, and this is how 
I became so intimate with Thackeray. The name 
of this gentleman was William Duer Robinson, a 
member of an old and well-known family, a family 
whose property was confiscated in revolutionary 
times because they stuck to the king. Thack- 
eray, I suppose, took a fancy to me ; at any rate 
it was understood every night when I came home 
from acting that if I saw a light in a certain win- 
dow I was to go in, and if not it was a sign they 
had gone out to dinner or to bed. When I did 
find them in we never parted until half- past two 
or three in the morning. Then was the time to 
see Thackeray at his best, because then he was 
like a boy; he did not attempt to be the genius 
of the party; he would let Robinson or me do the 
entertaining while he would be the audience. It 
did not matter how ridiculous or impossible might 
be the things I said, he would laugh till the tears 
ran down his face ; such an unsophisticated, 
gentle-hearted creature as he was. He gave a 
large dinner, at which, I remember, were my 
father, George William Curtis, Mr. Robinson, 



208 Memories of Fifty Years. 

myself and others, eighteen in all. It was the 
most delightful evening that could possibly be 
imagined. Thackeray, two nights before, had 
been to see my father play Shy lock, and he said : 
" Wallack, that is the first Shy lock who ever 
gave me the idea of what an ill-used man he 
was." 

On that evening I remember my father telling 
a story, which many an old actor here will recol- 
lect. It was the tale of a shipwreck as told by 
a clergyman who was on board, and the same 
scenes as described afterwards by an old sailor, 
the captain of the maintop. Thackeray's gentle 
and generous nature was so aroused by it that 
the tears ran down his face. Certainly one of 
the finest things my father did was the telling of 
that story. George Curtis and I sang a duet, I 
remember, " Drink to Me Only with Thine 
Eyes," and we were asked to repeat it three or 
four times. This all took place about the year 
1855. O n one occasion there was to be a dinner 
party of four. Thackeray said it might probably 
be the last time he should meet u's convivially 
during this visit, so we agreed to dine together 



Memories of Fifty Years. 209 

with him in Robinson's rooms. The party was 
to consist of Mr. Robinson, Thackeray, my father 
and myself. The hour arrived, and I came with 
a message from my father, who was laid up with 
the gout, one of his bad attacks, and could not 
accept. After waiting a long time for Thackeray, 
at last there came a ring at the bell, and the 
waiter brought up a large parcel and a note from 
him to say that a letter he had received com- 
pelled him to pack up as quickly as possible and 
start for England by the first steamer, and he 
added : " By the time you receive this, dear 
William, I shall be almost out of the harbor. Let 
me wish you a pleasant evening with the Wal- 
lacks, and let me ask you to accept this little 
gift as a remembrance of the many, many pleas- 
ant days and nights we have passed together." 
The gift was a beautiful silver vase. I never saw 
Thackeray again, but our short and intimate as- 
sociation is one of the most delightful reminis- 
cences of my life. 

The first time I ever met Sir John Millais he 
was as beautiful a boy as I ever saw, with per- 
fect, delicate features, and golden hair hanging 



210 Memories of Fifty Years. 

down his back. It was during a shower of rain 
which had driven everybody upon Lord's Cricket 
Ground into the tennis-court for shelter. This 
lad had picked up a lot of the balls which were 
on the ground, and began shying them at a mark, 
some of the bystanders pelting him in return, as 
he stood in the centre of the place, and I can re- 
member him, as if it were yesterday, receiving and 
repelling their friendly attacks until the tennis- 
court keeper, taking him by the arm, led him 
gently away. On this occasion we became ac- 
quainted, and through him I met his sister, who 
is now my wife. In the course of time I took 
him to see my father in Don Ccesar, with whom 
he became perfectly enraptured. He made 
sketches of my father in that and other parts, 
some of which are still among my cherished 
possessions. 

He was so little then that we used to have to 
put books on a chair to make a seat high enough 
for him to sit on while he drew. At this time 
he was drawing and sketching, and hoping to 
become a painter some day. Mrs. Millais, his 
mother, knew Sir Martin Shee, who was Presi- 



.-,.- m 




SKETCH OF J. W. WALLACK IN CHARACTER, BY MILLAIS. 



Memories of Fifty Years. 213 

dent of the Royal Academy. She told him that 
this little boy of hers had a great gift in the line 
of drawing, and Sir Martin replied : " For God's 
sake, do not encourage it. Many children show 
this sort of proclivity, and the end of it all is 
failure. It is not once in a thousand times that 
success is achieved. Bring him up to any pro- 
fession but mine." She asked him at least to 
gratify a mother's natural pride by looking at 
some of her darling's sketches. When he saw 
them he exclaimed rapturously: "It is your 
duty, by all means, Mrs. Millais, to encourage 
this boy in every way. He is a marvel ! " The 
result was that he was sent to the finest schools 
of art, and when the prize for the best historical 
drawing in pencil was awarded at one of the 
Royal Academy Assemblies the name of " Mr. 
Millais" was called. As a child in frocks was 
presented, the Duke of Sussex, who was in the 
chair, said in amazement : " Is this ' Mister Mil- 
lais'? Put him on the table!" And standing 
there he received his prize. 



LIST OF CHARACTERS 

PLAYED BY 

Mr. Lester Wallack 



Advocate Felix Dubois 

" Harry Ringdove 

All For Her Hugh Trevor 

Alma Mater Count Pave 

Americans in Paris Arthur Morris 

Angel in the Attic Michael Magnus 

Appeal to the Public Felix Rosemary 

Asmodeus (Little Devil) Don Rafael 

As You Like It Orlando 

At Last John Garlan 

Awkward Arrival Ormonde 

Bachelor of Arts Harry Jasper 

Barber Bravo Girolamo 

215 



216 List of Characters. 



Barrick Room Colonel Ferrier 

Belle's Stratagem Courtall 

" " Doricourt 

Flutter 

Birth Jack Randall 

Bleak House The Debilitated Cousin 

Blue and Cherry Lord Alfred Dorset 

Boarding School Lieutenant Varley 

Bold Dragoon Leon Sabertash 

Bold Stroke for a Husband ...... Don Julio 

Bosom Friends Mr. Union 

Brigand Massaroni 

Broker of Bogota Antonio de Cabarero 

Busy Body Marplot 

" " Sir George Airey 

Caprice Sir Edward Mordaunt 

Captain Bland Captain Bland 

Captain of the Watch de Ligny 

Caught in a Trap Marquis D'Arblay 

Central Park Wyndham Otis 

Charles the Second Rochester 

Child of the State Gros Rene 

Christmas Dinner Savage Hunter 

Clandestine Marriage Brush 

Clarisse Martial 

Colonel W. W. Woodd 



List of Characters. 217 



Compact Juan Ravagos 

Connubial Bliss Association Filigree 

Cool as a Cucumber Horatio Plummer 

Critic Puff 

Cure for the Heartache Young Rapid 

David Copperfield Stee?-forth 

Day After the Wedding .... Colo?iel Freelove 

Dear Cousin Walter Walter Hazleton 

Decided Case Captain Dudley Vere 

Delicate Ground Alphonse de Grandier 

" " Citizen. Sangfroid 

Diplomacy Harry Beauclerc 

Don Caesar de Bazan .... Don C&sar de Bazan 

Dramatist Floriville 

Duke Humphrey's Dinner . . . Richard Burdon 

Dumb Belle Vivian 

Education Vincent 

Elder Brother Eustace 

Elopements in High Life Hugh Travers 

Englishman in India Tom Tape 

Ernestine Frederick 

Eton Boy Captain Fop ham 

Every Body's Friend Felix Featherly 

" " Twistleton 

Every One Has His Fault . . Sir Robert Bramble 
Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady . Ruy Gomez 



218 List of Characters. 



Fashion Colonel Howard 

" Jolimaitre 

Fast Men of the Olden Time .... Rochester 

First Impressions Peveril 

Five Hundred Pounds Reward . Valentine Honey ball 

Follies of a Night Duke de Chartres 

" " Pierre Palliot 

Four Mousquetaires d'Artagnan 

Fox Chase Tom Waddy 

Frankenstein Frankenstein 

Game of Life Rupert Wolfe 

Game of Love Paul Weldon 

Gamester Lewson 

Giralda Xing Philip 

Going to the Bad Hardingham 

Good Fellow Umbraton 

Hamlet Horatio 

" , Laertes 

Osric 

Heads or Tails Dyecaster 

Hearts are Trumps Count Wagstaff 

Hearts at Fault Captain Hawk 

Heir at Law Dick Dowlas 

Henri ette Emil Lefevre 

Henry the Fourth Prince of Wales 

His Last Legs O'Callaghan 



List of Characters. 219 



Home . . . Colonel White 

Honey Moon Duke Aranza 

Polando 

Hopeless Passion Jacques Pamela 

How She Loves Him Tom Vacil 

How to Grow Rich Pave 

Hunchback Modus 

Husband to Order Pierre Marceau 

Impulse Colonel Crichto?i 

Inconstant Duretete 

Invisible Husband Don Philip 

Irish Heiress (West End) Percy Ardent 

Iron Chest Orson 

Wilford 

J. J's Mr. John J- 

Jacobite Major Murray 

Jealous Wife Mr. Oakley 

Jessie Brown Randall McGregor 

John Bull Hon. Tom Shuffleton 

John Garth John Garth 

King John Faulconbridge 

King Lear Edgar 

Oswald 

King of the Commons Mimgo Small 

King of the Mountains Walter Harris 

Knights of the Round Table . . Captain Cozzens 



220 List of Characters. 



Knights of the Round Table .... Tom Tittler 

Know Your Own Mind Millamour 

Ladies' Man Daffodill Twad 

Lady in Difficulties Count Natzman 

Lady of Lyons Claude Melnotte 

Lady of St. Tropez George Maurice 

Lancers Victor de Courcy 

Laugh When You Can Gossamer 

Leading Strings Frank Leveson 

Leap Year : Walker 

Liar Young Wilding 

Like and Unlike Ernest Bridoux 

Little Devil (Asmodeus) Don Rafael 

Little Treasure Walter Maydenblush 

London Assurance Charles Courtley 

Dazzle 

Love and Money Lord Fipley 

Love Chase Wildrake 

Love for Love Valentine 

Love in a Maze Colonel Buckthorne 

" " . . Lord Miniver 

Love Knot Bernard 

Love's Sacrifice St. Lo 

Lucky Hit Chevalier Vibrac 

Macbeth Macduff 

Magic Marriage Monte Cellini 



List of Characters. 221 



Maiden Wife Ernest Devereux 

Man and Wife Charles Austencourt 

Manifest Destiny Jack Mutable 

Man of Honor Jacques de Sanlieu 

Marriage a Lottery Waverley 

Married an Actress Frederick Plume 

Married Bachelor Sir Charles Courtall 

Married in Haste Gibson Greene 

Married Life Lionel Lynx 

" " Mr. Younghusband 

Married Rake Flightly 

Men of the Day Frank Hawthorne 

Merchant of Venice Bassanio 

" Gratiano 

Mimi King Charles LL 

Model Hypocrite La Touche 

Money Alfred Evelyn 

" Sir Frederick Blount 

Monte-Cristo Edmund Dantes 

Morning Call Sir Edward Ardent 

Much Ado About Nothing Benedick 

" " " " .... Don Pedro 

My Aunt Dick Dashall 

My Awful Dad Adonis Evergreen 

My Cousin German Albert Ehrenstein 

My Friend in the Straps O'Blarney 



222 List of Characters. 



My Little Adopted Frederick Somers 

My Master's Rival . Peter Shack 

My Noble Son-in-Law . . . Lord Herbert de Vere 
Naval Engagements . . Lieutenant Kingston, R. N. 

Nervous Man Mc Shane 

New Park John Brown 

New President De la Rampe 

Night and Morning Philip Morion 

Nothing Venture Nothing Win . . . De Launay 
Not So Bad as We Seem ...... Lord Wilmot 

Old English Gentleman Horace 

Old Heads and Young Heads . . . Littleton Coke 

Old Love and the New Courttown 

Othello Cassio 

Ours Hugh Chalcote 

Overland Route . Tom Dexter 

Patrician and Parvenu Dick Moonshine 

Pauline Horace de Beuzeval 

Paul Pry Harry Stanley 

Perfection Charles Paragon 

Playing With Fire Dr. Savage 

Poor Gentleman Frederick Bramble 

Poor of New York Badger 

Prima Donna Rouble 

Prison and Palace Alexis Romanoff 

Promotion Colonel Delagarde 



List of Characters. 223 



^ ( Frank Rochford 

Pure Gold \ 

( Lancia 

Queen's Husband Don Manuel 

Recruiting Officer Captain Brazen 

Regular Fix . Hugh de Brass 

Rent Day Toby Hey wood 

Richard the Third Richmond 

Trcssel 

Richelieu De Berrenghen 

Rights and Wrongs of Women. Sir Brian de Beausex 

Rights of Man Arthur Elsmere 

Rivals . Captain Absolute 

Road to Ruin Harry Dornion 

Robert Macaire ........ Robe7't Macaire 

Roland for an Oliver Alfred Highflyer 

Romance and Reality Frank Meredith 

Romance of a Poor Young Man .... Manuel 

Romeo and Juliet Mercutio 

Rosedale Elliot Grey 

Royalist He7iri de Flavigneul 

Rule a Wife and Have a Wife Leo7i 

" " " " . . Michael Perez 

Ruling Passion Tom Dexter 

Rural Felicity Singleton Unit 

Saville of Haysted Ned Thirrett 

Scan. Mag Edward Singleton 



224 List of Characters. 



School Jack Poyntz 

School for Scandal Charles Surface 

" " " .... Sir Benjamin Backbite 

School of Reform Ferment 

Scrap of Paper Prosper Couramont 

Secrets Worth Knowing Rostrum 

Serious Family Charles Torrens 

" " Murphy Maguire 

She Stoops to .Conquer ...... Young Marlow 

She Would and She Would Not . . Don Octavio 
She Would Be a Soldier . . . Captain Pendragon 
Short Reign and a Merry One . Chevalier Romayne 

Simpson and Co Mr. Bromley 

Sisters Ernest Bridveux 

Sketches in India Tom Tape 

Soldier's Courtship Colonel Gay ton 

Soldier's Daughter Frank Heartall 

Speed the Plough Bob Handy 

Spell Bound Raoulde Beaupirre 

Spring and Autumn Rattle 

State Prisoner Lord Henry Harvey 

Stranger The Stranger 

Teacher Taught . . . , Henry Aubrey 

Temper Hugh Emerson 

Three Guardsmen d'Artagnan 

Time Works Wonders Felix Goldthumb 



List of Characters. 225 



Tit For Tat Fred. Thombury 

To Marry or Not To Marry. Sir Oswin Mortland 

Tortesa Angela 

Town and Country Plastic 

" " " Reuben Glenroy 

Trumpeter's Daughter Philipot 

Trying It On Walsinghani Potts 

Twelfth Night Aguecheek 

" " Orsino 

Twelve Labors of Hercules .... De Marillac 

i Chester Delqfield 

Twins \ 

\ Mark Delafield 

Two Bonnycastles John James Johnson 

Two can Play at that Game . . . Hoiuard Leslie 

Two to One De Rameau 

Used Up Sir Charles Coldstream 

Valerie Walter Trevillian 

Valet de Sham Trivett 

Venus in Arms Dashall 

Veteran Leon Delmar 

Vicar of Wakefield Mr. Burchell 

Victorine Alexandre 

Virginius Lcilius 

Wanted a Widow Harry Revel 

Warwick Edward LV. 

Way to Get Married Tangent 



226 List of Characters. 



Weeds Among Flowers Crawley Webb 

Werner Ulric 

West End (Irish Heiress) Percy Ardent 

Wheat and Chaff Arthur Beaufort 

Wheel of Fortune Sydenham 

Who Do You Take Me For ? . . Terence O'Reilly 

Who Speaks First Captain Charles 

Who Wants a Guinea . . . Sir Larry McMurragh 

Wife Julian St. Pierre 

" * Leonardo 

Wild Oats Rover 

Will Howard 

Wives as They Were Bro?izely 

Wonder Colonel Briton 

" Don Felix 

Woodcock's Little Game Woodcock 

Wreck Ashore Captain Grampus 

Young Quaker Young Sadboy 






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BROADWAY 

THE1T1E. 

THIS SPLENDID ESTABLISHMENT, 



On Monday Eve'g, Sept* 27. 



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PltlCES OF ADMISSION. 



Private Boxet for Eight P 



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entrancis'tothe theatre. 

Entranco on Broadway. 



Monday Eve. Sept. 27, 1 841 

SCANDAL. 









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Grand Overture, 


by the Orchestra. 


Pas Seul by . . . 


. . Miss Celeste. 


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KKNNKL, (oictjcr)... 

I.M'V' L'i.i 1 1 jilhl ' ■«. 


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-.„*«** 



228 



Index. 



Colman, George (Younger), 33. 
Conner, Edmon S., 36. 
Conway, Frederick B., 192-194. 
Conway, Mrs. F. B., 153. 
Cooke, George Frederick, 8. 
Cooper, Sir Astley, 203. 
Couldock, C. W., 161. 
Coutts, Harriet. See Miss Mel- 
lon. 
Cumberland, Duke of, 205. 
Curds, George William, 208-209. 
Cushman, Charlotte, 75-77. 
Cushman, Susan, 75-76. 

Davenport, A. H., 63, 64. 
Davenport, Edwin L., 23. 
Davenport, Lizzie Weston. See 

Mrs. Charles J. Mathews. 
Davidge, William, 195. 
Davis, Bancroft, 159-160. 
De Begnis, Guiseppe, 108-115. 
Dickens, Charles, 172. 
Don, Sir Alexander N., 41. 
Don, Sir William, 41-48. 
Dowton, W., 100. 
Drew, Mrs. John, 184. 
Dumas, Alex. (Elder), 13, 137. 
Dunn, James, 13. 
Dyott, John, 141, 156. 

Edwards, Henry, VI, 23, 28, 60. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 82. 
Elliston, William, 7, 8, 82-89. 
Elssler, Fanny, 107. 
Eytinge, Rose, 23. 

Farren, William, 77, 79, 174-175, 

178-180. 
Faucit, Helen (Lady Martin), 

5 6 -57. 58, 127, 129. 



Faucit, Mrs., 57. 

Fawcett, John, 8, 39. 

Field, Allan (Lester Wallack), 

36. 
Field, Elizabeth. See Mrs.Will- 

iam Wallack. 
Fisher, Charles, 23, 155-156. 
Florence, William J., 28. 
Floyd, William R., 24, 69. 
Forrest, Edwin, 12, 60-61 , 129, 

131. 137. 
Fredericks, W. S., 131-132, 138. 

Gannon, Mary, 18, 24, 150. 

Garrick, David, 1, 80. 

George IV., 82, 83. 

Germon, Eme, 18. 

Gilbert, John, VI, 13, 23, 27, 

69, 173, 183. 
Glover, Edward, 195. 
Glover, Mrs., 179-180, 195. 
Gorfe", Mr., 192-194. 
Granger, Dr., 2. 
Granger, Mrs. See Mrs. William 

W^allack. 
Grisi, Carlotta, 107-108. 

Hackett, James H., 194-196. 

Hadaway, Thomas, 138. 

Hamblin, Thomas, 115-121. 

Hamblin, Mrs. Thomas (Miss 
Medina), 1 16-120. 

Hamblin, Mrs. Thomas (Mrs. 
Shaw), 120, 121. 

Hamblin, Thomas, Jr., 120, 121. 

Harland, Julia. See Julia Wal- 
lack. 

Hearn, Judge, 196. 

Hearn, Pat, 196-198. 

Henriques, Madeline, 18, 155. 



Index. 



229 



Hill, Mrs. See Mary Wallack. 

Hind, Thomas J., 141-143. 

Hod son , Georgiana, 147-150, 151. 

Hoey, John, 153. 

Hoey, Mrs. John (Mrs. Russell), 
18, 24, 144, 153-155- 

Holland, George, 18, 23, 156. 

Home, John, 33, 92. 

Hook, Theodore, 172, 199. 

Horncastle, W., 105, 106. 

Horton, Priscilla (Mrs. German 
Reed), 78. 

Hoskin, W., 4 . 

Hoskin, Mrs. W. See Julia Wal- 
lack. 

Hudson, Mr. ("Irish Hudson"), 
79, 180. 

Hunt, Henry, 184-185. 

Incledon, B. C., 8. 
Ireland, Joseph Norton, VI, 
2-3- 

James II., 188. 

Jefferson, Joseph, 28, 159-165. 

Jerrold, Douglas, 97-98. 

Johnstone, John, 8. 

Johnstone, Susan. See Mrs. J. 

W. Wallack. 
Johnston, Thos., 144. 
Jones, Mrs. (Miss Granger), 2. 
Jones, Richard, 39. 
Jordan, Dora, 2, 8. 
Jordan, George, 144. 

Kean, Charles, 91-98. 

Kean, Mrs. Charles (Ellen Tree), 

96-97. 
Kean, Edmund, 8, 59, 83, 92, 95, 

97, 100, 127. 



Kean, Mrs. Edmund, 92, 95. 
Keene, Laura, 18, 151-153, 159- 

162. 
Kellogg, Gertrude, 28. 
Kelly, Robert, 176. 
Kemble, Charles, 7, 39. 
Kemble, John Phillip, 8. 
Knowles, James Sheridan, 154. 

Lamb, Charles, 172. 

Langdon, Mrs., 129. 

Leffler, Mr., 50-51. 

Lester, J. Wallack. See Lester 

Wallack. 
Levick, Milnes, 28. 
Liston, John, 8. 
Lover, Samuel, 187-191. 
Lutz, Mr., 151. 
Lyster, Frederick, 148-149. 
Lytton-Bulwer, 57, 116, 122-124, 

175, 184. 

Macready, William C, 8, 57, 83- 

84, 97, 122-132, 166. 
Majoribanks, Mr., 42. 
Mann, Alvah, 134, 138, 
Marks, Mr., 130-131. 
Martin, Lady. See Helen Faucit. 
Martin, M., 89-91. 
Mathews, Charles, 8.' 
Mathews, Charles James, 23, 61- 

74. 77-79. l6 5, 172-173. t-77- 

Mathews, Mrs. C. J. (Madame 
Vestris), 62, 78, 201-202. 

Mathews, Mrs. C. J. (Lizzie Wes- 
ton — Mrs. A. H. Davenport), 
63-65, 72. 

Mayo, Frank, 27. 

Medina, Miss (Mrs. Thomas 
Hamblin). 116-120. 



230 



Index. 



Melbourne, Lord, 192. 

Mellon, Harriet (Duchess of St. 

Albans), 8, 95-96. 
Mestayer, Emily, 23. 
Meyers, Mr., 151-152. 
Millais, Mrs., 210-213. 
Millais, Sir John E., 210-213. 
Missouri, Louisa, 116-120. 
Mitchell, William, 103-106. 
Modjeska, Helen, 28. 
Montague, Henry J., 23, 174. 
Moorhouse, Mrs. Charles. See 

Fanny Wallack. 
Mordaunt, Plessy, 69. 
Moreau, Charles C, VI. 
Morrison, Mr., 49-50. 
Moss, Theodore, 18. 
Mowatt, Anna Cora, 12, 197. 
Murdoch, James E., 12. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 200. 
Nisbett, Mrs. (Lady Boothby), 
176, 180. 

Payne, John Howard, 39. 
Peters, Charles, 161. 
Phillips, H. B., 185-186. 
Pincott, Mrs. See Elizabeth 

Wallack. 
Placide, Henry, 18, 156-159. 
Placide, Thomas, 141, 159. 
Plimpton, Eben, 27. 
Polk, Joseph B., 23. 
Pollock, Sir Frederick, 126. 
Ponisi, Mme., 27. 
Poole, Mr., 174. 
Power, Maurice, 191. 
Power, Tyrone, 191. 
Power, Mrs. Tyrone, 191. 
Power, William Tyrone, 192. 



Price, Stephen, 91-92. 
Pritchard, Mrs., 80. 
Purdy, Alexander H., 3. 

Reade, Charles, 156. 

Reed, Mrs. German (Priscilla 

Horton), 78. 
Reynolds, William J., 156. 
Richmond, Duke of, 191. 
Robertson, Agnes. See Mrs. 

Dion Boucicault. 
Robertson, Tom, 169-170. 
Robinson, Frederick, 23. 
Robinson, William Duer, 207, 

209. 
Rogers, Major, 145-147. 
Rossini, 108. 

Roubillac, Leon Francois, 40. 
Russell, Mrs. See Mrs. Hoey. 

Salvini, T., 61. 
Scarlett, Sir James, 47-48. 
Seguin, Edward, in. 
Shakspere, 40, 56, 160, 169. 
Shaw, Mrs. See Mrs. Thomas 

Hamblin. 
Shee, Sir Martin, 210-213 
Sheridan, Richard B., 151, 169, 

183. 
Shirreff, Jane, ill. 
Siddons, Sarah, 8. 
Simpson, Edmund, 7. 
Simpson, Mrs. Edmund, 2. 
Sloane, John, 76, 186-187, !97- 
Smith, Mark, 23. 
Sothern, Edward A., 18, 156, 160- 

165. 
St. Albans, Duchess of. See 

Harriet Mellon. 
St. Albans, Duke of, 95. 
Stan field, Clarkson, 107. 



Index. 



231 



Stanley, Mrs. See Mary Wal- 

lack. 
Stebbins, Henry G., 120. 
Stevens, Sara, 161. 
Stewart, Douglas. See E. A. 

Sothern. 
Stewart, Mr., 180. 
Stoddart, James H., 69, 156. 
Stuart, Charles Edward, 205. 
Stuart, James Edward Francis, 

80. 
Stultz, Mr., 174. 
Sussex, Duke of, 213. 
Sutton, Sir Richard, 202-205. 

Taglioni, Marie, 107. 
Taylor, Douglas, 12. 
Taylor, Tom, 18, 159-160. 
Thackeray, William M., 172, 205- 

209. 
Thompson, Lysander, 155-156. 
Tree, Ellen. See Mrs. Charles 

Kean. 

Vanamburgh, Isaac, 89. 
Vandenhoff, Charlotte, 104. 
Vandenhoff, George, 137, 139- 

141, 184. 
Vandenhoff, John, 104. 
Vernon, Mrs., 24, 144, 156. 
Vestris, Madame (Mrs. Charles 

Mathews), 62, 78, 201-202. 
Victoria, Queen, 53. 

Wainwright, Bishop, 197. 
Wainwright, Wadsworth, 197. 
Walcot, Charles (Elder), 147-150. 
Wallack, Charles E., VI. 
Wallack, Elizabeth, 2. 
Wallack, Fanny, 3-4, 138. 



Wallack, Henry, 2-3, 34, 39, 89- 

91. 
Wallack, James W., 2, 4-1 1, 14, 

18, 2i, 33, 35-36, 70, 76, 77, 81- 

82, 87-89, 91, 95, 98, 100, 103- 

104, 105, 107-120, 122-123, 127, 

129, 134, 145-147, 150-151. 154. 

166, 197, 198-209, 210. 
Wallack, Mrs. James W. (Susan 

Johnstone), 8, 36-39. 
Wallack, James W., Jr. , 3, 13, 

23, 118, 137, 139-141. 
Wallack, John Johnstone. See 

Lester Wallack. 
Wallack, Julia, 3-4. 
Wallack, Lester. 

His descent, 1-11. 

His birth, 11. 

Sketch of his life, 11-31. 

His first professional appear- 
ance, 35. 

His professional career in Great 
Britain, 35-41, 56-57, 75-79, 

His first appearance in Amer- 
ica, 11, 134. 

His method of study, 166-171. 

His death, 28. 
Wallack, Mrs. Lester, VI -VII, 

11, 72-73, 167-168, 170-171, 210. 
Wallack, Mary, 2. 
Wallack, William, 1-2. 
Wallack, Mrs. William, 1-2. 
Washington, George, 143. 
Webster, Benjamin, 77-78, 124, 

133- 
Wellington, Duke of, 198-201. 
Weston, Lizzie. See Mrs. C. J. 

Mathews. 
Wewitzer, Ralph, 81-82. 
Wheelock, Joseph, 27. 



2^2 



Index. 



Wigan, Alfred, 177. 
Wigan, Mrs. Alfred, 2. 
Wilkie, Sir David, 98. 
William III., 188. 
Willis, Nathaniel P., 35. 
Wilson, John, 111. 
Wilton, J. H., 43. 



Winter, William, VI. 
Wood, Mrs. John, 18. 
Wrench, Mr., 123. 
Wyndham, Charles, 195. 
Wyndham, Mr., 195. 

Young, Charles, 8. 



THE DE VINNE PRESS. 



I 



i 



